LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
263 
shipped by government on board the Fury as presents to the 
natives of whatever country they might visit, for the purpose of 
obtaining their favor and confidence, as well as their assistance 
under any trying emergency that might arise, and that although 
they might certainly be considered by Capt. Ross in the light 
of treasure-trove, yet it did not follow that the whole of them 
belonged solely to himself, but that they should have been dis¬ 
tributed for the general benefit of the crew, at all events, that 
a direct mal-appropriation of them was committed in employing 
them entirely as articles of barter, and not in the way for which 
they were originally intended by government. 
It is rather a singular circumstance, that the fancy of Capt. Ross 
appeared to be particularly directed to the dresses of the natives; 
as no great objection was sometimes shown by him to the crew 
purchasing other articles of their manufacture; thus, the steward 
purchased a sledge of Tullooachiu, and on examining it, it was 
found to be made of salmon, with skins sewed over them, but the 
cross pieces were the leg bones of the rein-deer. It was not an 
erroneous conjecture of some of the crew, that when these poor 
creatures are driven to extremity for food, they turn to, and make 
a dainty meal of their sledges, as with the exception of the rein¬ 
deer bones, the whole of them is eatable. When we refer to the 
description which Capt. Franklin gives, of the different articles 
of food by which he and his party were maintained, the compo¬ 
nent parts of the sledge of an Esquimaux would under circum¬ 
stances of extreme want, be considered a real dainty. There 
cannot be any comparison between a meal of tripe de roche , and 
the stinking marrow of a rein-deer bone, and a piece of dried 
salmon, which by its exposure to the frost has been kept from 
putridity ; indeed the epicures amongst the Esquimaux do not 
hesitate to declare that the flavour of the salmon is rather en¬ 
hanced by its long keeping, on the same principle, we suppose, 
that the flavor of the game of this country rises in the estimation 
of the epicure, in proportion as the bird or animal approaches to 
putridity. At all events it must be a novel and curious exhibition, 
to observe a party of Esquimaux cutting up a sledge, and carving 
out pieces of salmon according to their respective tastes, and 
