LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
341 
was no sooner received as a member than he was chaired, for 
on being ushered into the sailor’s berth, he was placed in a 
chair, preparatory to being divested of many disagreeables that 
had attached themselves to his personal character, and perhaps 
were this plan to be adopted with some of the members that are 
received into another parliament, situate in a different degree of 
longitude than Felix Harbour, we opine that the country would 
be a great deal the better for the riddance. The operation of 
purification being completed, Poowutyook was in the evening in¬ 
ducted into the school of the Victory, and a lesson was set before 
him, by which he was to be initiated into all the beauties of the 
English language. In this particular, however, Poowutyook 
differed in a very trifling degree from the members of the other 
school or parliament formerly alluded to, who generally have a 
lesson set before them, which they are obliged to repeat accord¬ 
ing to the dictation of their schoolmaster, whose business it is to 
practise them in the pronunciation of the words aye and no, as 
being in most cases the only ones which they have to utter, or 
which their limited capacities are able to comprehend. 
In regard to the capacity or ductility of his scholars, Capt. 
Ross certainly appears to have been born under an evil star, for 
although the first letters of the alphabet were set before Poowut¬ 
yook, not a sound could be obtained from him which had any 
resemblance to that which the letters are known to possess, 
the A having a sound somewhat similar to the grunt of a pig, 
and a R to the scream of the parrot. Nevertheless the hope 
existed in the breast of Capt. Ross, that time would bestow a 
proper degree of flexibility upon the organs of Poowutyook, and 
that his ears might ultimately catch the sounds of the letters, so 
as to enable him to speak the English language with fluency. 
As a member of the crew of the Victory, Poowutyook had free 
access to all parts of the ship, but there was one particular place 
for which he exhibited a special predilection, and that was the 
berth of the steward, as it appeared to him to be the place, where 
the eatables seemed to be in the greatest abundance. Many a 
longing eye he cast upon the different viands as they were ranged 
on the shelves before him, or were pendent from the hooks in the 
