Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/163

144 "I must submit, hard as it is. Why did not the fellow tell me this morning what he was intending to do? A few of the Innuits concert and act without saying one word to me. I will try and settle accounts with them when I get to the ship, especially with Koojesse. This I write in my note-book as I stand on this rocky, tide-washed island, in the midst of a snow-storm, everything around closed from my view. Now the thickness lifts a little, I proceed to triangulate. Start 8.20 Really I never took such insolence from any white man, nor will I while I have a right arm to defend my honour, as I took from Koojesse when he told me a few moments ago that I could stop and go along down Kingaite side.... He knows that I am in his and his Innuit friends' power, and he uses it.... But I am silent in words; a thundering, however, is going on within. Its mutterings will be kept till I get to the ship, if I ever do. I must say that I believe my life is in danger; but God is with me here and everywhere. If I die at the hands of this treacherous people, I die in faith that I am in the performance of my duty. God deliver me from such scenes as I have witnessed among the men Innuits I have with me. Consultations, savage looks, are now and then to be seen....

"The sooner I am back the better. There may be a time when I can again enter this bay to do the work for which I engaged my present company, but it will have to be with a company of civilized men. "Nine now crossing toward a long, high island that trends in the same direction as Ki-ki-tuk-ju-a (Frobisher's Farthest). The head of Frobisher Bay not seen now, the sea or water of the bay to the north-west being the horizon. A remarkable sand or fossil mountain island, by Kingaite side, two miles off at our right, bearing W.N.W. by compass; I cannot determine its true character with 'spy.' A line of islands now seen that runs across Frobisher Bay from Frobisher's Farthest to Kingaite side. The trend I will determine soon, and make a record of it. "Snow-squall continued but four minutes. Very cloudy.