Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/29

10 "Hall's smaller island" of Frobislier, I went on by myself, leaving Ebierbing to occupy himself among the seals. On my walk I saw numerous bear-tracks, and such other evidence around me that I could not help exclaiming, "This outcast region is indeed one of plenty instead of barrenness!" In a few moments I was on the top of the highest elevation of "Hall's smaller island," and from it took several compass bearings as I viewed the scene around. But I was unable to stay long; and intending to revisit the spot, I soon went back to the sledge. During my absence two seals had been killed; but unnecessarily, for it was impossible to carry more than their skins and livers with us. Still, wherever a seal was observed, the two Innuits would away after it. This seriously delayed us, and it was near midnight before we got back to our previous night's encampment on the northern side of Hudson's Island, where we again rested. The next day, Monday, June 10th, we once more passed through Dr. Kane's Channel, and at 8.47 reached the middle of the south shore of Hall's Island. Here we encamped by a little cove on this shore, near the west end of the channel which runs on the north side of the small island which I ascended the day previous. Ebierbing went to seek fuel, which he found on the shore of our little bay in the shape of drift-wood. Koodloo and he then prepared our food, while I was off to ascend the mountain that flanked the place of our encampment. On the top of this mountain I found an Innuit monument which evidently had been erected centuries before, for it was black with the moss of ages. The "monument" was a very long stone stuck up between two larger ones, and the whole made firm by other stones wedged in, and in a way peculiarly Innuitish.

The view from the summit was fine. Meta Incognita, Cornelius Grinnell Bay, Field Bay, Davis's Straits, and Frobisher Bay, were all in sight. Inshore of me there was a beautiful lakelet a mile long and half a mile wide, surrounded