Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/131

 time we laboured to dissuade them from their plans of retaliation and revenge. They expressed their sorrow at our determination to expose the lives of so small a party among such a treacherous people as the Esquimaux; earnestly cautioned us to be on our guard in every meeting with these perfidious savages, especially in the act of embarking, the moment they usually select for an attack; and declared, that if the latter injured us—whom, in common with all the whites, they regarded as their fathers and friends,—the whole tribe would combine to exact a terrible vengeance. To this comfortable assurance we replied, that we ourselves entertained no apprehensions, and therefore enjoined them to banish all useless fears on our account. It is but justice to the Esquimaux to state, that, from our inquiries, the Loucheux appear to have drawn the above chastisement upon themselves. For several years they had exacted, and received, a gift, as "blood-money," from the former, on account of a Loucheux whom they asserted to have died of his wounds in an old encounter. On this last occasion three of the Loucheux repeated the annual demand, with which the Esquimaux were about to comply, when imfortunately the very man, so long re- ported dead, made his appearance. On this, the Esquimaux, after reviling the Loucheux for their