APPENDIX. 



593 



IX. 



The Loss of the Bark Kitty— Page 295. 

 The bark Kitty, of Newcastle, England, sailed from London for Hudson's Bay on 

 the 21st of June, 1859, and was wrecked on the ice September 5th in the same year. 

 The wife of the captain, writing to an arctic voyager with the hope that he might 

 procure some tidings of her husband, thus states the material facts, as reported by 

 survivors who had returned to England. After mentioning the date of the ship- 

 wreck, she continues as follows : 



u The crew, having sufficient time to provide themselves with every necessary they 

 thought prudent to take into their boats, landed on Saddleback Island, and remained 

 there four days, during which time they met several natives. They agreed to sepa- 

 rate themselves into two boats, and to proceed up the straits in hope of meeting the 

 Company's ships coming down. My husband, Captain Ellis, with ten men in the 

 long-boat, and Mr. Armstrong, chief mate, with four in the skiff, left Saddleback Isl- 

 and on the morning of September 10th, and at night, either from a snow-storm or in 

 the dark, the boats lost sight of each other. The skiff, inshore the next morning, 

 could see nothing of the long-boat. They then proceeded down the straits again, 

 and sailed for the coast of Labrador. After sailing sixty-one days, they were picked 

 up by the Esquimaux and taken to a Moravian missionary settlement. Finally, they 

 arrived at North Shields on the 28th of August, 1860, and since then there has never 

 been any tidings of the missing long-boat and her crew. " 



The following, on the same subject, is from the London Times of Nov. 17, 1862 : 

 "Murder of British Seamen. — In September, 1 859, the Kitty, of Newcastle, 

 was lost in Hudson's Straits by being nipped in the ice. Five of her crew, who got 

 into a small boat, after enduring great suffering by exposure to the cold, succeeded 

 in reaching a Moravian missionary station, where they were hospitably entertained, 

 and three of them sent to their homes in England next summer. But of the fate of 

 the master of this vessel, Mr. Ellis, and the remainder of the crew, who left the ship 

 in a long-boat, nothing has been heard until the arrival of the vessels from the Hud- 

 son's Bay stations this autumn, when the sad intelligence has been brought that the 

 eleven poor fellows fell into the hands of unfriendly Esquimaux, and were murdered 

 for the sake of their blankets. The missionaries at Okak, writing to the widow of 

 the master of the vessel in August last, say, 'It is with grief, madam, we must inform 

 you that it is, alas ! only too true that the long-boat, with her master and crew, ar- 

 rived at Ungava Bay, but that none of the men survive. Last winter, Esquimaux 

 from Ungava Bay visited our northernmost settlement, Hebron, who related that in 

 the winter of 1859-60, several Europeans in a boat landed at the island called Ak- 

 patok, in Ungava Bay. They lived with the Esquimaux until about January, upon 

 what the latter could provide for them ; but then, most likely when their provisions 

 became short, the Esquimaux attacked them when they were asleep and killed them, 

 stabbing them with their knives. There is no doubt of these really being the men 

 from the Kitty, because the Esquimaux knew there had been another boat, with five 

 men belonging to them, whom they deemed lost. They said one man of the mur- 

 dered company had very frostbitten feet, and him the Esquimaux would not kill by 

 stabbing, but showed him a kind of heathen mercy, as they put him into the open air 

 until he was dead by severe cold.' It seems that these unfortunate men had been 

 murdered for the sake of the blankets they had with them. It would appear that 

 one of the Esquimaux wanted to save the three Europeans who lodged with him, 

 but they met the same fate as their companions. The tribe who have committed 

 this murder do not appear to have been brought in contact with the European mis- 

 sions ; and the friendly tribe who brought the information in to Hebron farther in- 

 formed the Moravian missionaries at that place that a little farther north from Un- 

 gava Bay, a whole crew, consisting in all of about forty men, were enticed on shore 

 and then killed by the Esquimaux." 



PP 



