OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



549 



unintelligibly nasal, in consequence of an imperfect development of the 

 palatine bones leaving a gap in the roof of the mouth." 



ill iljod ,.f'>JI) nrfr • f • i f i if) ir flHO i i|j*'jtl AbWwtli fijii • f,i» «'£'t«^t*t>>ys ^t&faM()tnIV 

 The imperfect arithmetic of these people, which resolves every number 

 above ten into one comprehensive word, prevented our obtaining any very 

 certain information respecting the population of this part of North America 

 and its adjacent, islands. The principal stations of these people, not visited 

 by us, are Akkoolee, Toonoonee-roochhih, Peelig, and Toonoonek, of whose 

 situation I have already spoken. The first of these, which is the only one 

 situated on the continent, lies in an indentation of considerable depth, on 

 the shores of the Polar Sea, running in towards Repulse Bay on the oppo- 

 site coast, and forming with it the large peninsula situated like a bastion at 

 the north-east angle of America, which I have named Melville Peninsula, 

 in honour of Viscount Melville, the First Lord Commissioner of the 

 Admiralty. From what we know of the habits and disposition of the Esqui- 

 maux, which incline them always to associate in considerable numbers, we 

 cannot well assign a smaller population than fifty souls to each of the four 

 principal stations above-mentioned; and including these, and the inhabitants 

 of several minor ones that were occasionally named to us, there may per- 

 haps be three or four hundred people belonging to this tribe, with whom we 

 have never had communication. In all their charts of this neighbour- 

 hood they also delineate a tract of land to the eastward, and somewhat to 

 the northward, of Igloolik, where they say the Seadlermeoo, or strangers, 

 live, with whom, as with the Esquimaux of Southampton Island, and all 

 others coming under the same denomination, they have seldom or never 

 any intercourse, either of a friendly or a hostile nature. It is more than 

 probable that the natives of the inlet called the River Clyde, on the western 

 coast of Baffin's Bay, are a part of the people thus designated ; and indeed 

 the whole of the numerous bays and inlets on that extensive and productive 

 line of coast may be the residence of great numbers of Esquimaux, of whom 

 these people possess no accurate information. 



Whatever may be the abundance sometimes enjoyed by these people, and 

 whatever the maladies occasioned by their too frequent abuse of it, it is 

 certain that they occasionally suffer very severely from the opposite ex- 

 treme. A remarkably intelligent woman informed Captain Lyon, that two 

 years ago some Esquimaux arrived at Igloolik from a place near Akkoole& 



