than before, Captain Lyon and myself set out to the westward at half past eleven A. M., and the ice proving level, reached Khemig at half past five; when it was satisfactory to find that the route followed by Captain Lyon on his journey with Toolemak was precisely that which I had supposed, every feature of the land, of which the fog had before scarcely allowed him a glimpse, being now easily recognised, and every difficulty cleared up. Pro. ceeding at eight A.M. on the 8th, we soon met with numerous tracks of deer upon the ice, which, together with the seals that lay in great numbers near their holes, expedited our journey very considerably, the dogs frequently setting off at full gallop on sniffing one of them. Landing at the head of Quilliam Creek at half past one, we took up an advantageous position for looking about us, in order to determine on the direction of Captain Lyon's route over land, which all the Esquimaux concurred in representing as a laborious one. We met with several reindeer immediately on our landing; and, while in pursuit of them, Captain Lyon discov. ered a lake two or three miles long and a quarter of a mile broad, a short distance from the tents, which we concluded to be that of which I was in search. As some of our party were suffering from snow-blindness, and, what is scarcely less painful, severe inflammation of the whole face, occasioned by the heat of the sun, we remained here for the rest of this day to make our final arrangements.

At nine A.M. on the 9th we struck the tents, and Captain Lyon set off to the southward, while we drove over to the lake, which is one mile N.N.W. of the head of the creek, and, after three VOL. II.-H

or four hours' labour, completed a nole through the ice, which was very dark-coloured, brittle, and transparent, and, as Toolemak had said, about five feet thick. The water, which was eleven fathoms deep, flowed up within a couple of inches of the surface, over which lay a covering of snow eighteen inches in depth. In confident hope of now obtaining some fish, we proceeded exactly according to Toolemak's instructions; but, after four-andtwenty hours' trial at all depths, not even a single nibble rewarded our labour.

Coasting the south shore, on which I wished to obtain observations and angles for the survey, we the next day entered a small bay, where we pitched our tent; our whole party being now so snow. blind with endeavouring to distinguish the land from the ice (so entirely were both covered with snow), that we could literally no longer muster one eye among three of us to direct the sledge. I found a handkerchief tied close, but not too tightly, round the eyes for a whole night, to be a more effectual remedy for this disagreeable complaint than any application of eyewater; and my companions being induced to try the same experiment, derived equal benefit from it. Reaching Arlagnuk towards evening of the 13th, we found that our parties had each thirty or forty ducks ready for the ships; and that the Esquimaux had lately altogether deserted this station, owing to the scarcity of walruses, and had removed to Ooglit, where these animals were said to be abundant at this season. Leaving our people on the morning of the 14th, I returned on board soon after noon, where I found that nothing worthy of particular notice had occurred during my absence.

On the 20th three or four other Esquimaux, strangers to us, arrived at Igloolik from the northward, and we found from two young men who vis. ited us on the following day, that they came from Too-nōō-nek, a place undoubtedly situated somewhere on the western coast of Baffin's Bay, or about some of the inlets communicating with it, as they had there seen several Kabloona ships employ. ed in killing whales. It is not improbable, from the various accounts of the direction and distance of Toonoonek, communicated by the Esquimaux through the usual medium of their charts, that the part of the seacoast so named lies at no great distance from Pond's Bay, in lat. 721°, which has lately become a common rendezvous of our Davis's Strait fishermen. Of this fact we had, in the course of the winter, received intimation from these people from time to time, and had even some reason to believe that our visit to the Esquimaux of the River Clyde in 1820 was known to them; but what most excited our interest at this time was the sledge brought by the new comers, the runner being composed of large single pieces of wood, one of them painted black over a lead-coloured priming, and the cross-bars consisting of heading-pie. ces of oak-buts, one flat board with a hinge-mark upon it the upper end of a skid or small boat's davit, and others that had evidently and recently been procured from some ship. On one of the heading-pieces we distinguished the letters Brea-, showing that the cask had, according to the cus. tom of the whalers, contained bread on the outward passage. The nature of all these materials led us to suppose that it must have been procured

from some vessel wrecked or damaged on the coast; and this suspicion was on the following day confirmed by our obtaining information that, at a place called Akköōdneak, a single day's journey beyond Toonoonek, two ships like ours had been driven on shore by the ice, and that the people had gone away in boats equipped for the purpose, leaving one ship on her beam ends, and the other upright, in which situation the vessels were supposed still to remain.*

We observed on this occasion as on our first arrival at Igloolik, that the new Esquimaux were obliged to have recourse to the others to interpret to them our meaning, which circumstance, as it still appeared to me, was to be attributed, as before, to our speaking a kind of broken Esquimaux that habit had rendered familiar to our old acquaintance, rather than to any essential difference in the true languages of the two people.

Toolemak having some time before promised to accompany me to the fishing-place, taking with him his wife, together with his sledge, dogs, and tent, made his appearance from Ooglit on the 23d, bringing, however, only the old lady and abundance of meat. Having lent him a tent and two of our dogs, and hired others to complete his establishment, we set out together at five A.M. on the 24th, my own party consisting of Mr. Crozier and a seaman from each ship. Arriving at Khemig towards noon, we found among the islands that the ice was quite covered with water, owing, probably, to the

We have since heard that these ships were the Dexterity, of Leith, and the Aurora, of Hull, which were wrecked on the 28th of August, 1821, about the latitude of 72°.

radiation of heat from the rocks. The weather proved, indeed, intensely hot this day, the thermometer in the shade, at the ships, being as high as 51°, and the land in this neighbourhood preventing the access of wind from any quarter. The travelling being good beyond this, we arrived within. four or five miles of the head of Quilliam Creek at ten P.M., where we pitched the tents for the night. In this day's journey ten dogs had drawn my sledge a distance of forty statute miles since the morning, the weight on the sledge being about twelve hundred pounds, and half of the road very indiffer. ent. It is the custom of the Esquimaux, even when meat is most abundant, to feed these invaluable animals only once a day, and that in the evening, which they consider to agree with them better than more frequent meals; we always observed the same practice with ours, and found that they performed their journeys the better for it.

On the morning of the 25th, while passing close to a point of land, Toolemak suddenly stopped his sledge, and he and his wife walked to the shore, whither I immediately followed them. The old woman, preceding her husband, went up to a circle of stones, of which there were two or three on the spot, and, kneeling down within it, cried most loud. ly and bitterly for the space of two or three minutes, while Toolemak also shed abundant tears, but without any loud lamentation. On inquiring presently after, I found that this was the spot on which their tent had been pitched in the summer, and that the bed-place on which the old woman knelt had been that of their adopted son Noogloo, whose premature death we had all so much regret