OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



305 



made them so wild that we procured but few. Captain Lyon's party were 

 fortunate in killing two deer, giving each ship one hundred and fifty pounds 

 of fine venison exclusive of the heads and hearts, which as a matter of good 

 policy were considered the lawful perquisites of the sportsmen. Including 

 these and the entrails, the weight of each deer was estimated at two hundred 

 and twenty pounds, which may be considered a favourable specimen of the 

 rein-deer here at their best season. One of these animals took the water in 

 a large pond, and was not obtained without much wading. 



The Esquimaux we met on the island at iirst landing were four young men, 

 of which two were brothers of our little friend " John Bull," and had just 

 arrived from Amitioke. From them we learned that Ewerat and his party 

 had reached the place of their destination, and would probably come on to 

 Igloolik in the course of the summer. One of the young men who insisted 

 on attending me about the island the whole afternoon, made himself useful 

 in giving the Esquimaux names of the different lands in sight. On being- 

 desired to inform us where Khemig lay, he pointed in the exact direction in 

 which we had from the ships always supposed the strait to be ; that is, about 

 N.W.b.W. from Neerlo-nakto, upon which bearing was a high rocky hill of 

 a remarkable form, and the most conspicuous object in sight in coming off 

 the strait from the eastward. It is essential here to remark, that about this 

 period two or three charts had been drawn on board the Hecla by different 

 natives, of whom Toolemak was one, and they all pointed, in the direction 

 I have just mentioned to Khemig, which was now understood to be an island 

 lying in the strait, as in fact it afterwards proved. This information so 

 repeatedly and explicitly obtained, while it satisfied me more and more of 

 our being in the right track, could not fail also to add to my perplexity re- 

 specting the place visited by Captain Lyon, — a place evidently bearing a 

 similar name and frequented by the Esquimaux on their way to Akkoolee, but 

 lying by observation at least fifteen miles to the southward of the strait now 

 before us. The clearing up of all obscurity on this point was desirable at 

 the present moment, more as an object of curiosity or geographical research, 

 than as affecting the movements of the Expedition ; for these too evidently 

 depended on necessity not choice ; it being impossible, supposing even the 

 existence of half a dozen different channels, to navigate any but that in 

 which nature should open her barriers. That this operation was going on 

 more rapidly here than in the passage to the southward of Igloolik, and 

 that from their comparative size and openness, as well as from the current 



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