194 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
maux furnished, Commander James was induced to attach greater 
faith to their report, than to that which had been previously given, 
and yet it would have been highly injudicious and premature to 
have acted upon the information of any of the natives, from the 
consideration of the great discrepancy which existed in their 
reports, although it must have been allowed, that personal inte¬ 
rests could not have led them to falsify their information, or to 
have given it designedly wrong, merely for the purpose of mis¬ 
leading. At all events, the information which these Esquimaux 
gave, was not calculated by any means to enliven the hopes of 
the Commander of the expedition, or to lead him to believe, that 
he was in the direct track of becoming the discoverer of the 
north west passage. 
Previously to their leaving the ship, a present of an empty 
cannister was made to each of them with which they seemed 
highly pleased, but their manner of fitting on the lid was clumsy 
and awkward in the extreme, and when one of them suc¬ 
ceeded in getting it on, he shouted for joy, as if he had accom¬ 
plished a most wonderful deed. 
On the 20th, the interminable labour was resumed of digging 
the parts of the engine out of the ice, and considering the almost 
total worthlessness of the articles in reference to any future use, 
to which they could be applied on board the vessel, it is perhaps 
saying not too much, that it was a labour to which the men 
should not have been subjected, exposed as they were continually, 
not only to the severity of the frost, but to the immersion of 
their feet in the water, which occasioned a continual numbness 
in their extremities, highly injurious to their health. It is 
sometimes not an easy matter to convince an individual of his 
error, notwithstanding the circumstances become so multiplied 
upon each other, that the most positive proofs hourly present 
themselves to shew to the individual that the course, which he 
is pursuing, is the wrong one. Capt. Ross, it might have been 
supposed had received the most convincing proofs during his 
voyage to Felix Harbour, unless his mind was of that marble 
constitution, that scarcely any impression could be made upon it, 
that he had committed a most egregious blunder in affixing 
