LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
245 
five pounds of seal or walrus flesh at a sitting*, and during the 
day, ten pounds will barely satisfy his rapacious appetite. It is 
highly probable that the alternate feasting and fasting, to which 
the gluttony and improvidence of these people so constantly 
subject them, may be the cause of many of the complaints with 
which they are afflicted, for although they seem to endure pri¬ 
vation with resignation, yet they no sooner obtain a supply of 
food, than they eat to that inordinate degree, that they are to be 
seen lying in their huts, so distended by the quantity of meat they 
have eaten, as to be scarcely able to move, and suffering consi¬ 
derable pain from the extreme repletion. At particular seasons 
of the year, the seals become uncommonly wild, the walrus has 
quitted the ice, and the reindeer and other migratory animals 
indigenous to the country, have left the coasts to search for a more 
luxuriant pasture deeper in the country. It is then that the Es¬ 
quimaux desert their habitations and migrate to other quarters, 
where the greater probability exists of procuring the means of 
subsistence, and perhaps a more desolate object cannot be ima¬ 
gined than the deserted village of the Esquimaux. The interior 
of the huts presents an appearance of wretchedness, which baffles 
all description; the very snow which composes the beds and fire 
places is turned, in order that the most trivial object may not be 
left behind ; even the bare walls whose original colour is scarcely 
perceptible for lamp black, blood and other filth, are not left 
perfect, as large holes are made in the sides and roofs, for the 
convenience of handing out the goods and chattels. 
The si<rht of a deserted habitation is at all times calculated 
o 
to excite in the mind a sensation of dreariness and desolation, 
especially, when it has been lately filled with cheerful inhabi¬ 
tants, but this feeling is even heightened rather than diminished, 
when a small portion of these inhabitants remain behind to endure 
the extreme of wretchedness, with the prospect of a lingering 
torturing death before them, and this is too frequently the case 
with the aged and the infirm, who not being considered able to 
endure the fatigues of the journey to a distant quarter, are cruelly 
left behind to seek for their own maintenance, in the best possible 
way which they are able. Capt. Parry mentions an instance of 
