392 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



Jamfary y oun & woman lately brought to bed, was lying about in the snow beside the 

 ^-rv^' road, and making lamentations that bespoke much more sincere grief than 

 the cutting off of hair, which the widows here did not always practise*. 

 We did not, however, at this time know what bitter cause of lamentation 

 this event was to prove to poor Kaga. 



Mr. Crawford thought he could not now better execute his instructions 

 than in bringing to the ship a young man of the name of Kooeetseek, who 

 was very much debilitated by the long continuance of a rheumatic com- 

 plaint ; he was accordingly lodged in our sick bay together with his sister, 

 an intelligent child about nine years of age, named Kirko-warioo, who accom- 

 panied him as his nurse. The latter soon became domesticated among us 

 and, being well cleaned and dressed in European clothes, amused us greatly 

 by her vivacity and intelligence. Indeed it required no long acquaintance 

 with this poor child, to convince us that art and education might easily have 

 made her equal or superior to ourselves, or, as some of our gentlemen at 

 the time remarked, that there were in reality more shades of dirt than of any 

 other difference subsisting between us. 



Scarcely had these arrangements been made on board the Fury, when we 

 heard of the death of Captain Lyon's patient, her extremely debilitated 

 state rendering it impossible to rally her by any means that could be devised. 

 The circumstances attending the death and burial of this poor woman and 

 her child, affording an insight into some of the customs of the Esquimaux 

 on these occasions, are thus related by Captain Lyon, to whom I am in- 

 debted for the account. 



23. " The mother Poo-too-alook was about thirty-five years of age, the child 

 about three years — yet not weaned, and a female ; there was also another 

 daughter Shega, about twelve or thirteen years of age, who as well as 

 her father was a most attentive nurse. My hopes were but small as far as 

 concerned the mother, but the child was so patient that I hoped from its 

 docility soon to accustom it to soups and nourishing food, as its only com- 

 plaint was actual starvation. I screened off a portion of my cabin, and 

 arranged some bedding for them, in the same manner as the Esquimaux 

 do their own. Warm broth, dry bedding, and a comfortable cabin did 



* Crantz, I. 138. 



