Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/189

170 thinking of it all the night. I feel very happy now. My winga thought you lost too; and now he also is happy."

In the afternoon old Artarkparu visited me. He had arrived, with his company, from up Frobisher Bay a little before my return, and I now gladly conversed with him, through Koojesse as interpreter, about the pieces of iron I had obtained at Tikkoon and Kodlunarn. I asked him if he had ever seen them before, and he replied, "No, not those, but one much larger." He then made a circular motion with his hand over and around the piece of iron I had placed on the table, and, according to this, that which he had seen must have been five times as large. He added to his remark that a very strong Innuit could just lift it, and there were very few who were able to do so. This piece of metal was, as he explained, on the southwest side of Oopungnewing Island, just above high-water mark. He had seen it six years before, but not since. The metal was "soft" and "smooth," not "hard," like the pieces I had before me.

Ebierbing, visiting me that day in our little after-cabin, was conversing with me, and speaking of his sickness and recovery—of the critical state in which his nuliana lay for several days succeeding the birth of their child—of the loss of his very valuable seal and sledge dog "Smile," and another of his dogs. He said further, "We thankful that still live and able to work. Lose our dogs; sick and unable to go tuktooing; no tuktoo skins for winter; never mind; we alive and together; got fine boy, and are happy." I thought this was indeed akin to Christian philosophy, deserving respect and admiration. Annawa and his wife Nood-loo-yong visited me on the morning of September 30th, and I showed them the relics I had obtained. They at once recognised them as coming from the places I had examined. These people had spent most of their days round the waters of Frobisher Bay, and especially on the islands Oopungnewing and Niountelik. The portion of brick which I had found the previous winter, when transferring my things from one sledge to the other, opposite