Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/368

Rh Mr. Armstrong, chief mate, with four in the skiff, left Saddleback Island on the morning of September 10th, and at night, either from a snow-storm or in the dark, the boats lost sight, of each other. The skiff, inshore the next morning, could see nothing of the long-boat. They then proceeded down the straits again, and sailed for the coast of Labrador. After sailing sixty-one days, they were picked up by the Esquimaux and taken to a Moravian missionary settlement. Finally, they arrived at North Shields on the 28th of August, 1860, and since then there has never been any tidings of the missing long-boat and her crew." The following, on the same subject, is from the London Times of Nov. 17th, 1862:—

"—In September, 1859, the Kitty, of Newcastle, was lost in Hudson's Straits by being nipped in the ice. Five of her crew, who got into a small boat, after enduring great suffering by exposure to the cold, succeeded in reaching a Moravian missionary station, where they were hospitably entertained, and three of them sent to their homes in England next summer. But of the fate of the master of this vessel, Mr. Ellis, and the remainder of the crew, who left the ship in a long-boat, nothing has been heard until the arrival of the vessels from the Hudson's Bay stations this autumn, when the sad intelligence has been brought that the eleven poor fellows fell into the hands of unfriendly Esquimaux, and were murdered for the sake of their blankets. The missionaries at Okak, writing to the widow of the master of the vessel in August last, say, 'It is with grief, madam, we must inform you that it is, alas! only too true that the long-boat, with her master and crew, arrived at Ungava Bay, but that none of the men survive. Last winter, Esquimaux from Ungava Bay visited our northernmost settlement, Hebron, who related that in the winter of 1859-60, several Europeans in a boat landed at the island called Akpatok, in Ungava Bay. They lived with the Esquimaux until about January, upon what the latter could provide for them; but then, most likely when their provisions became short, the Esquimaux attacked them when they were asleep and killed them, stabbing them with their knives. There is no doubt of these really being the men from the Kitty, because the Esquimaux knew there had been another boat, with five men belonging to them, whom they deemed lost. They said one man of the murdered company had very frostbitten feet, and him the Esquimaux would not kill by stabbing, but showed him a kind of heathen mercy, as they put him into the open air until he was dead by severe cold.' It seems that these unfortunate men had been murdered for the sake of the blankets they had with them. It would appear that one of the Esquimaux wanted to save the three Europeans who lodged with him, but they met the same fate as their companions. The tribe who have committed this murder do not appear to have been brought in contact with the European missions; and the friendly tribe who brought the information into Hebron further