LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
277 
On the return of the party with the intelligence of the 
discovery of the corpse, Capt. Ross determined that as it had 
been deprived by the carpenter of one of its extremities, he 
would without any further loss of time obtain possession of 
the other, and he therefore despatched Mr. Mc’Diarmid with 
two of the crew, to behead lllictu, and to bring to him the 
head, as Judith did of old that of Holofernes. The decapita¬ 
tion was performed by the surgeon, secundum artem; and 
being delivered to Capt. Ross, it was determined that it should 
cut a prominent figure in his cabinet of arctic curiosities. 
Be it here recorded, that in addition to the many eminent quali¬ 
fications which adorn the mind of Capt. Ross, he has obtained a 
smattering of phrenology, by which he has been able to determine 
by certain prominences on his own head, denominated in the tech¬ 
nical jargon of the science, organs or bumps, that he possesses in 
an eminent degree all the virtues which are necessary for the 
discoverer of the North West Passage. It is rumoured, (but 
rumour is often a lying hussey,) that it is owing to the extraor¬ 
dinary size of the organ or bump of conceitedness that Capt. 
Ross was induced to undertake his last voyage, at all events, he 
had now obtained a subject which could amuse him in his 
leisure hours, and divert him from perfecting himself in so 
infallible a science as phrenology, by any experiments which he 
might feel himself inclined to perform on his own head. He 
turned and twisted the caput of lllictu round and round; exam¬ 
ined this bump and then that, and in the first place he discover¬ 
ed that the organ of destructiveness was strongly developed — 
a subsequent investigation revealed to him that lllictu had 
destroyed more seals and walruses than any other of his tribe, 
and therefore he had by his own experimental researches fully 
confirmed the principles of the science. He also found that the 
organ of amativeness was very large—Capt. Ross knew that 
lllictu, for an Esquimaux had had a very large family—therefore 
here again he was right—not that his previous knowledge of the 
extent of the family of lllictu had the slightest influence on the 
discovery of the extraordinary size of the bump of amativeness; 
it was clearly pointed out to the scholars of the Victory during 
