290 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP. Finding it run towards him, he concluded the bargain to be disad- 
vantageous to him, and took back his goods. 
Au^nist, On this day they admitted us to their habitations, and all restric- 
tions were removed, except that upon writing in our remark books, to 
which they had such an objection, that they refused us any information 
while they were open, and with great good nature closed them, or if we 
persisted, they dodged their heads and made off. 
Our new acquaintances, amounting to twenty-five in number, had 
five tents, constructed with skins of sea animals, strained upon poles ; 
and for floors they had some broad planks two feet in the clear. I was 
anxious to learn where they obtained these, knowing that they had them- 
selves no means of reducing a tree to the form of a plank, but I could get 
no information on this point : in all probability they had been purchased 
from the Tschutschi, or the Russians. Each tent had its baidar, and 
there were two to spare, which were turned upside down, and aiforded 
a convenient house for several dogs, resembling those of Baffin’s Bay, 
which were strapped to logs of wood to prevent their straying away. 
In front of these baidars there were heaps of skins filled with oil 
and blubber, &c., and near them some very strong nets full of dried 
salmon, suspended to frames made of drift wood : these frames, also, 
contained upon stretchers the intestines of whales, which are used for 
a variety of purposes, particularly for the kamlaikas, a sort of shirt 
which is put over their skin dresses in wet weather. 
More provident than the inhabitants of Melville Peninsula, these 
people had collected an immense store of provision if intended only for 
the number of persons we saw. Besides a great many skins of oil, blub- 
ber, and blood, they had about three thousand pounds of dried fish. 
On the first visit to this party, they constructed a chart of the 
coast upon the sand, of which I took very little notice at the time. 
To-day, however, they renewed their labour, and performed their work 
upon the sandy beach in a very ingenious and intelligible manner. The 
coast line was first marked out with a stick, and the distances regulated 
by the days’ journeys. The hills and ranges of mountains were next shown 
by elevations of sand or stone, and the islands represented by heaps of 
pebbles, their proportions being duly attended to. As the work pro- 
