OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



557 



but we had no opportunity of learning it. In one instance I heard a time 

 described by the number of moons that had since elapsed, and with tolerable 

 precision ; but this mode of computation is not in common use, and was only 

 resorted to from the question being put in that way. We were not aware of 

 their making use of any other epochs, or large divisions of time, with one 

 of which, however, our own arrival among them is not unlikely to furnish 

 them. It is perhaps owing to their deficiency in numeration that their 

 mode of expressing any short interval of time beyond a single day is 

 extremely dubious and indefinite. For instance ikpokkee-d?iee is used indif- 

 ferently to express yesterday, and several days, or even weeks ago, and 

 al-ra-nee any past period beyond a single year. If several years be spoken of 

 they either express it by repeating " alranee, alranee, alranee," or more 

 simply by the usual resource of " oonooktoot" (a great many,) and always 

 seem teazed and perplexed by more minute inquiry. 



In expressing colours the same kind of uncertainty exists, except with 

 red, white, black, and grey. For blue and yellow the terms given by differ- 

 ent persons, or by the same person at different times, are seldom twice alike ; 

 and the confession of " nelloo-ooanga" (I don't know) generally follows a 

 closer inquiry. Dark blue they at once call black, and light blue or yellow, 

 white ; as to green they scarcely ever pretend to give it a name, which, little 

 as they are accustomed to see that colour, is perhaps not much to be won- 

 dered at. 



The foregoing remarks on the language of these people comprise all the 

 certain information I have been enabled to collect on this subject, during 

 the time of our residence with them, both at Winter Island and Igloolik. I 

 shall close this brief sketch by the annexed vocabulary of words and sen- 

 tences *, in which great care has been taken not to insert any of which the 

 meaning is doubtful. That considerable caution is requisite in this respect 

 repeated experience has taught us, as well on account of the uncertainty 

 which must always attend a first communication with any people whose 

 language is imperfectly known, as from the habit which the Esquimaux, 

 have of repeating any word you say, as if for the purpose of affirming it,. 



* In acquiring information of this nature, at the time of our first communication with the: 

 Esquimaux, we were much assisted by a list of words and sentences in the Greenland lan_ 

 guage, for which I am indebted to the unsolicited kindness of the Reverend C. I. Latrobe, a 

 gentleman well known and deservedly esteemed in the Christian and literary world. 



