Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 1.djvu/139

CHAPTER VI.

First Visit to Frobisher Bay—"Meta Incognita"—Fossils—Koo-jesse and his Family—Old Artarkparu—The beautiful Kok-er-zhun—Skinning Ducks—Esquimaux Food—Native Mode of Sleeping—Innuit Head-ornaments—White Man's Grave—Esquimaux Grave—Innuit Skill in Geography—Aurora Borealis—Visited by Numbers of the Natives—Skill of the Women at Work—Trial of the Expedition Boat—Ancient Dwellings of the Innuits—A Mountain Pass—Whale captured—Great Feast for the Natives—Author's first Trial at raw Whale-meat—Discovery of a Frobisher Relic.

It was half-past four o'clock, August 21st, when we dropped anchor in this beautiful inlet, which I name after Richard H. Chappell, of New London, Connecticut. We then had a hurried tea, and immediately afterward took a boat and went on shore. Our party consisted of the captain, Mates Gardiner and Lamb, Morgan and Bailey, besides myself. Four Esquimaux—two of them being Ugarng and his wife Kun-ni-u—also accompanied us.

On getting ashore we found that the neck of land dividing the waters just left from those of Frobisher "Straits" was less than a mile in breadth, and so low that, except in one part where a ridge of rocks occurred, it could not be more than a few feet above the sea, and possibly covered at high tides. Portions of this isthmus were sandy, and the rest full of stones, rocks, and several specimens of shale, many of which I eagerly collected. On one plat of sand we observed some foot-tracks, which Ugarng stated to be of reindeer, though such an opinion seemed to me ridiculous from the appearance before us, and so the event proved on the following day, when we encountered some Esquimaux who had been here.

On arriving at the ridge of rocks, which I call "Morgan's Hill," and which overlooked the whole locality around, I paused a moment to gaze upon the scene before my eye.