542 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, implements were neater and more ingeniously made. Among their 
peltry we noticed several gray fox and land-otter skins, but they would 
Sept, not part with them for less than a hatchet apiece. In addition to the 
* • usual weapons of bows and arrows, these people had short iron spears 
neatly inlaid with brass, upon all which implements they, set great 
value, and kept them wrapped in skins. Among the inhabitants of the 
village on the northern shore, named Choonowuck, there were several 
girls with massive iron bracelets. One had a curb chain for a necklace, 
and another a bell suspended in front, in the manner described the 
preceding year at Choris Peninsula. 
There are very few natives in the outer harbour. On the northern 
side there is a village of yourts, to which the inhabitants apparently 
resort only in the winter. At the time of our visit it was in charge of 
an old man, his wife, and daughter, who received us civilly, and gave 
us some fish. The yourts were in a very ruinous condition : some 
were half filled with water, and all were filthy. By several articles 
and cooking utensils left upon the shelves, and by some sledges which 
were secreted in the bushes, the inhabitants evidently intended to 
return as soon as the frost should consolidate all the stagnant water 
within and about their dwellings. One of these yourts was so capa- 
cious that it could only have been intended as an assembly or ban- 
quetting room, and corresponded with the description of similar rooms 
among the eastern Esquimaux. 
There was a burying-ground near the village in which we noticed 
several bodies wrapped in skins, and deposited upon drift-wood, with 
frames of canoes, and sledges, &c., placed near them, as already de- 
scribed at the entrance of Hotham Inlet. The old man whom we 
found at this place gave the same names to the villages at the head 
of the inner harbour, and to the points of land at its entrance, as we 
had received from the natives of King-a-ghe whom we met in Kot- 
zebue Sound. 
His daughter had the hammer of a musket suspended about her 
neck, and held it so sacred that she would scarcely submit it to exami- 
nation, and afterwards carefully concealed it within her dress. She was 
