540 



ARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION. 



than half a geographical mile, an approximation I little expected 

 to make." 



I found Henry very sick, and it was necessary that I should get 

 him to the vessel as soon as possible. Tunukderlien and Jennie 

 were well, the latter as evil-disposed as ever. Sharkey, howev- 

 er, had to receive sad news. By his former wife he had a child, 

 which had been given in care to another Innuit. This child 

 would occasionally, by various acts such as are common to young 

 children, annoy its guardian, who accordingly conveyed it to the 

 top of a lonely and rocky mountain, sewed it up in a sealskin, and 

 threw it down a deep cleft, leaving it there to be frozen to death, 

 and there its little corpse was afterward discovered by some In- 

 nuits. 



We found plenty of food among the people here, and blubber, 

 the commercial value of which would have been some hundreds 

 of dollars, and yet all soon to be wasted. One ookgook which 

 they had captured must have weighed quite 1500 pounds, and its 

 blubber was two inches thick. 



The following day, May 19th, finding that Koojesse was too 

 sick to accompany me farther, and that Sharkey had to remain 

 with his wife, I made arrangements with the Innuit 11 Bill," who 

 agreed to take Henry and myself, ^with my dogs, to Oopungne- 

 wing. After farewells with my Innuit friends, away we went, all 

 six of us (Bill would have his wife and two children along too), 

 down the bay ; but in the evening a heavy snow-storm came on, 

 and, though we tried to breast it for some time, we were at length 

 obliged to give in, and encamp, after midnight, on Clarke's Isl- 

 and, which is between Jones's Cape and Chapel's Point. 



The next morning, the 20th, we again proceeded, the traveling, 

 in consequence of rough ice, being very bad, and, on arriving at a 

 point near Twerpukjua, we were obliged to make our course over 

 a narrow neck of land, called the Pass of JEe-too-nop-pin, which 

 leads directly to the Countess of Warwick's Sound. The channel 

 between Niountelik and Oopungnewing was also much broken 

 up, and it was only with great difficulty we reached the latter- 

 named place in the afternoon. Here I found numerous Innuit 



families, and also heard that Captain B had visited the place, 



but had gone down to Cape True fifteen days before. " Bill," my 

 sledge-driver, was so stricken with snow-blindness that I had to 

 make arrangements with Innuit " Charley" to carry me back to 

 the ship. This was speedily effected, and in an hour's time we 

 again started. 



