Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/109

90 ahead with his gun to hunt tuktoo. The boat kept close in shore until we came to Hamlen's Bay, which had to be crossed. Here I embarked with Charley, and with a fair breeze we sped across at the rate of about five miles an hour. On the west side of the entrance to this bay were some islands, between which and the main land was a channel; and, in order to get to the northward and westward (which, being the general trend of the coast thus far, I had reason to suppose to be probably its direction to the head of the bay), we must pass through this channel. We should have done so without delay but that the ebb of the tide had left it dry. Not being aware of this, I told Koojesse to go on. With a twinkle in his eye, he said, "Well, you tell 'em so—we try." Accordingly we went on until, rounding an island that was at the mouth of the channel which is called by the Innuits Tin-ne-took-ke-yarn (Low-tide Land), I saw we were on the verge of dry land. A rise and fall of twenty-five feet in the tide made that impassable at low water which six hours before was a deep channel.

Koojesse, on seeing my surprise, looked at me with such a merry laugh that I could not rebuke him had I been so inclined. We turned the boat round, and formed our sixth encampment upon Blanchard's Island.

In the early part of this day, while yet close to Brewster's Point, and while walking on the beach, I met with remains of many Innuit habitations of former days, when they used to build them of earth and stone. Bones of the whale, and of all other animals that principally serve the Innuits for subsistence, lay there in abundance, many of them very old, their age probably numbering hundreds of years. One shoulder-blade of a whale measured five feet along its arc, and four feet radius. Whale-ribs, also, were scattered here and there, one of them being eight feet in length. I also noticed there