ESQUIMAUX. 185 



subject of teaching their children, I invited to 

 my tent seven of the oldest men among them ; 

 and repeated to them the questions which I 

 had put to the whole of them before. They 

 expressed the same feelings in favour of in- 

 struction, and a hope that I was not afraid to 

 come to their country, promising, when white 

 man came, not to steal from him, a vice which 

 they are sometimes guilty of at the Factory. 

 I found that they believed in a future state ; 

 and acknowledged that there was a bad Spirit, 

 who made them suffer, and to whom they prayed 

 that he would not hurt them. They thought 

 that when a bad man died, the bad Spirit took 

 him, and put him in a hole under ground, 

 where there was always fire, but this idea they 

 might have got from their intercourse with 

 Europeans at the Fort : and when a good man 

 died, they believed that the moon took him 

 up, where he lived as he had done below, only 

 that he had always plenty to enjoy, and less 

 paddling to do. In parting with these Indians, 

 as with the others who returned to Chesterfield 

 Inlet, I gave to each individual a clasp knife, 

 some tobacco, and a few beads to take to their 

 wives ; and my prayer to God was, that some 

 effectual step might be taken to communicate 

 to these heathen, that knowledge which they 



