We were soon joined by an old woman who took upon herself the office of mistress of the ceremonies, and commenced with great volubility to give me the names of the men, which were as follows:--A-li-ne-a-yuk, Kag-vik, Tag-na-koo and Nu-li-a-yuk; the first being old, the second middle aged, and the two last young men of about twenty-five. They were all married, and were much more forward in their manners and dirty in their persons and dress, than our friends of Repulse Bay. They were very anxious for me to enter their huts, but this I thought it prudent to decline, and after much persuasion and promises of knives, needles, beads, &c. I prevailed on them to follow me to our snow house.
A little more than an hour brought me to our encampment, where I found Adamson quite well but all alone, Ivitchuk and the boy being out looking for seals. They had not met with any Esquimaux, and no animals of any kind had been killed, Ivitchuk standing so much in awe of his countrymen that he was afraid to stay out seal-hunting during the night, which is the only time that these animals are to be caught at that season of the year. I found that much more of our stock of provisions had been used than there was any occasion for--in fact, the appearance of the men shewed that they had been on full allowance.
About an hour after my arrival, Corrigal and Flett made their appearance, accompanied by the four Esquimaux that I had seen and a boy. A few trifling presents were made them, and they promised to return on the following day with oil, blubber, &c. to barter with us. It blew a gale all the evening, with the thermometer 21° below zero.
The morning of the 22d was fine with a temperature of -20°, but during the day it blew hard with drift. Our party kept in bed rather longer than usual, and we were visited by the Esquimaux before we had got up. They brought a quantity of seal's flesh, blood, and blubber, which I was about to purchase from them when the thermometer was reported as missing. I immediately shut the box containing the valuables, and intimated that they should receive nothing unless the thermometer was given up. After about ten minutes' delay one of the women brought in the lost article, saying, that the dogs had pulled it down and carried it off,--a very probable story certainly; but having obtained what I wanted I cared little who might be the thief.