FROBISHER STRAIT A MYTH. 



408 



As we descended the side-hill leading to the boat, I found the 

 women busily engaged with their cups in blueberry picking, pull- 

 ing them now and then by the handful, the berries were so large 

 and abundant. Before long the party came on board, bringing 

 with them quarts of the luscious fruit, with which they entertain- 

 ed us very agreeably, the whole scene carrying me back at once 

 among the friends of my youth. 



Innuits will always be Innuits. When we left our thirteenth 

 encampment, one of them had gone off with his kia to an island 

 to hunt some tuktoo, which had been seen two hours before. A 

 part of the company had been left with the other boat to await 

 the return of the deer-hunter, while the rest of us went on slow- 

 ly, stopping at Bishop's Island, as above related. We had but 

 just re-embarked, when Koojesse, looking through his spyglass j 

 back toward the encampment, announced that the other party had 

 a tuktoo in the water — a live tuktoo ! This fired every Innuit ; 

 all the powers of reason could not keep them from going to see 

 the fun ; and so about we went, and in a moment they were all 

 pulling back as for dear life. The sequel was more amusing and 

 satisfactory to me than to my Innuits. When they came near 

 enough to see their live tuktoo, it turned out to be only a goose! 



After sundry other vexatious delays of a similar nature we 

 were fairly under way, and the scene was for a time pretty in- 

 deed. The boats were alongside of each other. The Innuit wom- 

 en were at the oars. In the jacket-hood of Puto was her child, 

 the constant, measured rock of the body in pulling the oar being 

 equal for sleep-giving to any patent Yankee cradle ever invented. 

 The gilt head -bands of the ladies glittered and flashed, and the 

 whole picture was peculiar and charming. 



At about 6 P.M. we stopped for our fourteenth encampment,* 

 the fog shutting us out from all view except of the coast on our 

 left. The place where we encamped was on the Kingaite side of 

 Frobisher Bay, at the base of a long straight bank of sand and 

 shingle, from thirty -five to forty feet high, the top being a grassy 

 slope which extended back some three hundred fathoms to the 

 mountains. 



u September 1st, 1861. A day of trials and discovery. At last I 

 am where I have long desired to be. From my own vision, L Fro- 

 Usher's Strait' is a myth. It only exists in the minds of the civil- 

 ized world — not in fact. 



* Our fourteenth encampment was in lat. 63° 41' N., long. 68° 48' W. 



