OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
281 
men whom we had already seen, there were four women, one of which 1820 . 
being about the same age as the old man, was probably his wife ; the others 
were about thirty, twenty-two, and eighteen years of age. The first two 
of these, whom we supposed to be married to the two oldest of the young 
men, had infants slung in a kind of bag at their backs, much in the same 
way as gipsies are accustomed to carry their children. There were also 
seven children, from twelve to three years of age, besides the two infants 
in arms, or rather behind their mothers’ backs ; and the woman of thirty was 
with child. 
We began, as before, by buying whatever they had to dispose of, giving 
in exchange knives, axes, brass kettles, needles, and other useful articles, 
and then added such presents as might be further serviceable to them. 
From the first moment of our arrival until we left them, or rather until we 
had nothing left to give, the females were particularly importunate with us, 
and “ pilletay” resounded from the whole troop, wherever we went : they 
were extremely anxious to obtain our buttons, apparently more on account of 
the ornament of the crown and anchor which they observed upon them, 
than from any value they set upon their use ; and several of these were 
cut off our jackets to please their fancy. When I first endeavoured to 
bargain for a sledge, the persons I addressed gave me distinctly to under- 
stand by signs, that it was not their property, and pointed towards the 
woman who owned it; though my ignorance in this respect offered a 
good opportunity of defrauding me, had they been so inclined, by receiving 
an equivalent for that which did not belong to them: on the owner’s coming 
forward, the bargain was quickly concluded. The pikes which I gave 
in exchange underwent the usual ceremony of licking, and the sledge was 
carried to our boat with the most perfect understanding on both sides. 
In another instance, an axe was offered by some of the Griper’s gentlemen, 
as the price of a dog, to which the woman who owned the animal consented. 
To shew that we placed full confidence in them, the axe was given to her 
before the dog was caught, and she immediately went away with a kind of 
halter or harness of thongs, which they use for this purpose, and honestly 
brought one of the finest among them, though nothing would have been 
easier than to have evaded the performance of her contract. The readiness, 
however, with which they generally parted with their commodities, was by 
no means the effect of fear, nor did it always depend on the value of the 
articles offered in exchange ; for, having, as I thought, concluded a bargain 
