332 
VOYAGE TO THE 
months before, and came again in the expectation of getting a few 
V — more blue beads and foreign articles for some nets and fish. They im- 
1826 ^^dmtsly recognised such of the officers as they had seen before, and 
were delighted at meeting them. Some of the beads which they had 
obtained were now suspended to different parts of their dress, in the same 
manner as was practised by the Esquimaux of Melville Peninsula, and 
round their necks, or were made into bracelets. They corroborated the 
former account of the inlet, the length of which they estimated a long 
day’s paddle : our observations made it thirty-nine miles. At the back 
of the point where we landed there was another inlet, to the end of 
which they said their baidars could also go, notwithstanding we saw a bar 
across its mouth so shallow that the gulls waded over from shore to shore. 
Near us there was a burying-ground, which, in addition to what we 
had already observed at Cape Espenburg, furnished several examples 
of the manner in which this tribe of natives dispose of their dead. 
In some instances a platform was constructed of drift wood, raised 
about two feet and a quarter from the ground, upon which the body 
was placed with its head to the westward, and a double tent of drift 
wood erected over it; the inner one with spars about seven feet 
long, and the outer one with some that were three times that length. 
They were placed close together, and at first no doubt sufficiently so 
to prevent the depredations of foxes and wolves ; but they had yielded 
at last ; and all the bodies, and even the hides that covered them, had 
suffered by these rapacious animals. 
In these tents of the dead there were no coffins or planks, as at 
Cape Espenburg ; the bodies were dressed in a frock made of eider-duck 
skins, with one of deer-skin over it, and were covered with a sea-horse 
hide, such as the natives use for their baidars. Suspended to the 
poles, and on the ground near them, were several Esquimaux imple- 
ments, consisting of wooden trays, paddles, and a tambourine, which, 
we were informed, as well as signs could convey the meaning of the 
natives, were placed there for the use of the deceased, who, in the 
next world, (pointing to the western sky), ate, drank, and sang songs. 
Having no interpreter, this was all the information I could obtain; 
but the custom of placing such implements around the receptacles 
