LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
349 
Esquimaux directs his course according to the bearing of some 
remarkable headlands, for in regard to any sideral observations 
they appear to be as ignorant as the animals which they drive. 
They certainly have a name for the four cardinal points of the 
compass, but they know not to what use to employ them, or to 
make them subservient to any of the purposes of directing them 
in their course from one station to another, and particularly to 
those distant quarters, which they frequent in the summer months 
for the purpose of carrying on their fisheries. 
Commander Ross on this excursion penetrated above thirty 
miles into the interior, but every thing tended to convince him 
that he was not on a continent, for the intersections of land 
and water, at that time in a compact body of ice, were so fre¬ 
quent,. that he concluded it was an archipelago of small islands, 
but that they could not form a part of the polar sea. The short 
duration of light was however a great obstacle to the prosecution 
of his researches, and he therefore considered it more prudent 
to return to the ship, with the determination of renewing them 
when the days were longer. 
On his arrival at the ship, he was rather mortified to find that 
Poowutyook had never made his appearance, but it was ascer¬ 
tained by some Esquimaux, who came to the ship on the follow¬ 
ing morning from the south east, that he had returned to his 
snow-built hut and his native habits, bidding adieu for ever to 
the vaunted advantages of civilization, and to his character as 
representative of the Esquimaux nation. Capt. Ross ordered a 
new writ to be issued in the room of Poowutyook, who had ac¬ 
cepted the chiltern hundreds, but strange to say not a candidate 
presented himself, and the proper officer having made a return 
to that effect, the borough of Immeetplue (Esquimaux,) was for 
ever after disfranchised. 
The attempt to metamorphose a savage into a civilized being 
having failed, the endemic of monument-building appeared 
again to attack the commander of the Victory, for on the 19th 
he despatched a party to the eastward, with instructions to 
build as large a monument as w T as within their power ; not 
mighty particular as to shape, hut very much so as to magni- 
