LEAVE CHURCHILL FACTORY. 189 



the Southern Indians, these generally decide 

 them by wrestling. They may permit a weak 

 man, if he be a good hunter, to keep the object 

 of his choice ; but otherwise he is obliged to 

 yield his wife to a stronger man, who may 

 think her worth his notice. This barbarous 

 custom I should suppose prevails among the 

 Esquimaux who visit Churchill Factory, as 

 they pointed out to me, at the time I saw them, 

 a weakly looking man, who they said had his 

 wife taken from him by another of superior 

 strength. They shewed me also how they 

 decided their quarrels, by each party alter- 

 nately bending- the body in a horizontal posi- 

 tion, and receiving from each other a blow of 

 the fist on the temple or side of the face. 



On the 12th, we left Churchill Factory, and 

 in our track killed plenty of wild-fowl, and 

 were again tortured with the mosquitoes, till 

 after the second day's march, when we waded 

 through a low swampy ground, frequently half- 

 leg deep in water, to some dry ridges of land. 

 The wind blew again off the ice in the bay, 

 which enabled us to walk without much annoy- 

 ance ; and in our progress, we often passed 

 large holes, which the bears had scratched in 

 these ridges to lie in, and which, from the 



