Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/129

110 question as to Frobisher "Strait" or Bay, I copy my diary as written on the spot. "August 25th, 1861, 3.30 —Another and another is added to the number of beautiful days we've had since starting on this expedition. Can it be that such fine weather is here generally prevailing, while bad weather everywhere else north is the ruling characteristic? "This certainly is a fact, that here, at the head of Frobisher Bay, a milder climate prevails than at Field Bay and elsewhere, or the luxuriant vegetation that is around here could not be. The grass plain, the grass-clothed hills, are abundant proof of this. I never saw in the States, unless the exception be of the prairies of the West, more luxuriant grasses on uncultivated lands than are here around, under me. There is no mistake in this statement, that pasture-land here, for stock, cannot be excelled by any anywhere, unless it be cultivated, or found, as already excepted, in the great West.

"How is it with the land animals here? They are fat—'fat as butter.' The paunch of the reindeer killed by Koojesse was filled to its utmost capacity with grasses, mosses, and leaves of the various plants that abound here. The animal was very fat, his rump lined with tood-noo (reindeer tallow), which goes much better with me than butter. Superior indeed is it, as sweet, golden butter is to lard. The venison is very tender, almost falling to pieces as you attempt to lift a steak by its edge. So it is with all the tuktoo that have as yet been killed here. Rabbits are in fine condition. Not only are they so now, but they must be nearly in as good order here in winter, for God hath given them the means to make their way through the garb of white, with which He clothes the earth here, for their subsistence.

"Koodloo returned this morning with the skins and