390 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



January She was one of the two wives of 0°y arra > one of Captain Lyon's fellow- 

 travellers in the summer, who buried her in the snow about two hundred 

 yards from the huts, placing slabs of the same perishable substance over the 

 body, and cementing them by pouring a little water in the interstices. Such 

 an interment was not likely to be a very secure one, and accordingly a few 

 days after, the hungry dogs removed the snow, and devoured the body. 



Wed. 22. We had also heard of the indisposition of a woman named Pootob-a-loofc, 

 the wife of Tak/cee-li/ckee-td, and the accounts of her being now more un- 

 favourable than before, Captain Lyon drove out to the huts on the 22d, ac- 

 companied by Mr. Mac Laren, to see and endeavour to relieve her. They 

 found her in an extremely debilitated state, and her child, which was about 

 three years of age, lying under the same skin, apparently almost starved in 

 consequence of its mother's inability to suckle it. After feeding them both 

 with a little arrow-root, Captain Lyon desired the man to come to the ships 

 the next day for some medicines, as well as for some blankets to add to 

 their warmth and dryness. On entering one of the bone huts, Captain 

 Lyon discovered a log of wood forming a transverse beam above the 

 entrance : on examination it proved to be of fir, without bark, from four 

 to five feet in length, about eight inches in diameter, and having no appear- 

 ance of being eaten by worms. The Esquimaux informed him that it had 

 been picked up on the island of Neerlo-nakto, but did not trouble them- 

 selves to form any conjecture from whence it came. This circumstance is 

 principally worth mentioning for the sake of introducing a much more sin- 

 gular one, that, during five summers' navigation on or about the north- 

 eastern coast of the American continent, we have never met with one piece 

 of drift-wood floating in the sea. 



While speaking on this subject, I may not improperly add what has been 

 the result of numerous inquiries respecting the wood which, as we under- 

 stood the Esquimaux, was said to grow at or near Akkoolee. It appeared from 

 some conversations with these people after our arrival at Igloolik, that, 

 upon the north-west point of an island on that coast, called Sedt-toke, a 

 considerable quantity of wood of large dimensions is found ; but so dif- 

 ficult is this place of access that, of all the Esquimaux of whom we have a 

 personal knowledge, it is extremely doubtful whether a single individual 

 has ever been there, and the information is, therefore, entirely from hear- 

 say. Ewerat, who was the clearest in his account of it, and who derived 

 all his information on this subject from a very old man now living, but not 



