Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/217

Rh Good Hope, kept company with us for two days, at the end of which they fell behind, being unable to bear the fatigue of our long hours—from 4 in the morning to 8 or 9 at night.

On the evening of the 26th there was a brilliant display of the aurora, which our Loucheux companions called "saung." Ursa major they denominated "eutyæ," and told us that its Esquimaux appellation is "bellic." They mimicked the manners and address of that race to the life. Upon the beach was found the body of a female child about five years old, who, we afterwards learned, had been abandoned by the outer Hare Indians. The poor child had lost both parents, and, having no other relatives to take care of it, was cruelly left to its fate. Our chancing to pass beyond the limit of the traders' travels disclosed a circumstance which these people thought would have remained secret; for they have been so severely taken to task by the Company's officers for similar acts of barbarity, that they are now comparatively rare, and in general carefully concealed. The practice of mothers casting away their own female children, which is common at this day in China, Madagascar, Hindostan, and other countries more blessed by nature than Mackenzie River, was frequent here, as it was in