OF THE POLAR SEA. 



225 



ever, we promised to return on discovering the first change in the 

 season. He was also told that all the baggage being left behind, our 

 canoes, would now, of course, travel infinitely more expeditiously 

 than any thing he had hitherto witnessed. Akaitcho appeared to 

 feel hurt, that we should continue to press the matter further, and 

 answered with some warmth : " Well, I have said every thing I can 

 urge, to dissuade you from going on this service, on which, it seems, 

 you' wish to sacrifice your own fives, as well as the Indians who 

 might attend you : however, if after all I have said, you are deter- 

 mined to go, some of my young men shall join the party, because it 

 shall not be said, that we permitted you to die alone after having 

 brought you hither; but from the moment they embark in the 

 canoes, I and my relatives shall lament them as dead." 



We could only reply to this forcible appeal, by assuring him and 

 the Indians who were seated around him, that we felt the most 

 anxious solicitude for the safety of every individual, and that it was 

 far from our intention to proceed without considering every argu- 

 ment for and against the proposed journey. 



We next informed him, that it would be very desirable to see the 

 river at any rate, that we might give some positive information 

 about its situation and size, in our next letters to the great Chief; 

 and that we were very anxious to get on its banks, for the purpose 

 of observing an eclipse of the sun, which we described to him, and 

 said would happen in a few days. He received this communication 

 with more temper than the preceding, though he immediately as- 

 signed as a reason for his declining to go, that " the Indians must now 

 procure a sufficient quantity of deer-skins for winter clothing for 

 themselves, and dresses for the Canadians, who would need them if 

 they had to travel in the winter." Finding him so averse to proceed, 

 and feeling at the same time, how essential his continuance with us 

 was, not only to our future success, but even to our existence during 

 the winter ; I closed the conversation here, intending to propose to 



2 G 



