OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



395 



of beads, to offer her breast to the sick child, but the poor little Creature jj^jy 

 pushed it angrily away. Another woman was asked to do the same, but v^yO 

 although her child was half weaned she flatly refused. 



" The aunt of my little one seeming anxious to remain, and Shega being 

 now alone, I invited her to stop the night. In the evening the child took meat 

 and jelly and sat up to help itself, but it soon after resumed its melancholy 

 cry for its mother. At night my party had retired to sleep, yet I heard 

 loud sighing occasionally, and on lifting the curtain I saw Takkeelikkeeta 

 standing and looking mournfully at his child. I endeavoured to compose 

 him and he promised to go to bed, but hearing him again sighing, in a few 

 minutes, I went and found the poor infant was dead, and that its father had 

 been some time aware of it. He now told me it had seen its mother the last 

 time it called on her, and that she had beckoned it to Khil-la, (Heaven) on 

 which it instantly died. He said it was " good " that the child was gone, 

 that no children out-lived their mothers, and that the black spot which 

 Shega had frequently renewed was quite sufficient to ensure the death of 

 the infant. 



" My party made a hearty breakfast on the 26th, and I observed they did 26. 

 not scruple to lay the vessel containing the meat on the dead child, which I 

 had wrapped in a blanket ; and this unnatural table excited neither disgust 

 nor any other feeling amongst them more than a block of wood could have 

 done. We now tied up all the dogs as Takkeelikkeeta desired, and took the 

 child about a quarter of a mile astern of the ships to bury it in the snow ; 

 for the father assured me that her mother would cry in her grave if any 

 weight of stones or earth pressed on her infant. She herself, he feared, 

 had already felt pain from the monument of stones which we had laid upon 

 her. The snow in which we dug the child's grave was not above a foot 

 deep, yet we were not allowed to cut into the ice or even use any slabs of it 

 in constructing the little tomb. The body wrapped in a blanket, and having 

 the face uncovered, being placed, the father put the slings by which its de- 

 ceased mother had carried it, on the right side, and in compliance with the 

 Esquimaux custom of burying toys and presents with their dead, I threw in 

 some beads. A few loose slabs of snow were now placed so as to cover 

 without touching the body, and with this very slight sepulchre the father 

 was contented, although a fox could have dug through it in half a minute. 

 We however added more snow, and cemented all by pouring about twenty 

 buckets of water, which were brought from the ship, on every part of the 



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