OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



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In enumerating the articles of their food we might perhaps give a list of 

 every animal inhabiting these regions, as they certainly will at times eat 

 any one of them. Their principal dependence however is on the rein-deer, 

 (tooktoo;) musk-ox, (oommgmukj in the parts where this animal is found ; 

 whale, fdggawek;J walrus, (ei-u-ek ;) the large and small seal, foguke and 

 neitiek;) and two sorts of salmon, the ewee-iaroke, (salmo alpinus?) and 

 ichluGWoke. The latter is taken by hooks in fresh-water lakes, and the 

 former by spearing in the shoal water of certain inlets of the sea. Of all 

 these animals, they can only procure in the winter the walrus and small seal 

 upon this part of the coast ; and these at times, as we have seen, in scarcely 

 sufficient quantity for their subsistence. 



They certainly in general prefer eating their meat cooked, and while 

 they have fuel they usually boil it ; but this is a luxury and not a necessary 

 to them. Oily as the nature of their principal food is, yet they commonly 

 take an equal proportion of lean to their fat, and unless very hungry do 

 not eat it otherwise. Oil they seldom or never use in any way as a part of 

 their general diet ; and even our butter, of which they were fond, they would 

 not eat without a due quantity of bread*. They do not like salt meat 

 as well as fresh, and never use salt themselves ; but ship's pork or even a 

 red herring did not come amiss to them. Of pea-soup they would eat as 

 much as the sailors could afford to give them ; and that word was the only 

 one, with the exception of our names, which many of them ever learned in 

 English. Among their own luxuries must be mentioned a rich soup called 

 kayo, made of blood, gravy, and water, and eaten quite hot. In obtaining 

 the names bf several plants, which will be found in the vocabulary, we 

 learned that they sometimes eat the leaves of sorrel, (kongolek,) and those of 

 the ground willow ; as also the red berries, ( paoona-rootik,) of the vaccinum 

 uliginoswn, and the root of the potmtilla pulchella ; but these cannot be said to 

 form a part of their regular diet ; scurvy grass they never eat. 



Their only drink is water ; and of this when they can procure it they 

 swallow an inconceivable quantity ; so that one of the principal occupations 

 of the women during the winter is the thawing of snow in the ootkooseks for 

 this purpose. They cut it into thin slices, and are careful to have it clean, on 



* Toolooak, who was a frequent visitor at the young gentlemen's mess-table on board the 

 Fury, once evinced this taste, and no small cunning at the same time, by asking alternately 

 for a little more bread, and a little more butter, till he had made a hearty meal. 



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