Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/125

 from their extreme poverty, I am led to imagine that these people had never before seen Europeans; although it is not improbable they may have observed the Hudson’s Bay ships pass at a distance in the offing, on some occasions when they may have been driven by bad weather a little out of their annual course. We obtained the latitude 62° 29' 50“N. and long., by afternoon sights, 82° 48' 46“W.

“At 4, on the 28th, with the wind from the northward, and a heavy short sea, apparently caused by a weather tide, we weighed, and continued to run S.W. along the beach, until 11 , when being off a low point, eight miles from our last anchorage, we saw a shoal running about five miles to seaward. Keeping an offing, we rounded this, and then found the land, which was still low, to trend from behind the point, which I take to be ‘Carey’s Swan Nest’ of Sir Thomas Button. Several store-houses, and two winter-huts, were seen on the beach, but no natives appeared. Having stood in for the shore, a strong tide assisted us until evening, when having run W.S.W. about 20 miles since noon, we anchored, at two miles from the shore, in 13 fathoms.

“At 4, on the 29th, the wind being light and contrary, with continued rain, I landed to procure water, abreast of the ship. Near our landing-place were the remains of a large Esquimaux establishment, and at a short distance from the shore was a large mound, which contained a dead person, sewed up in a skin, and apparently long buried. The body was so coiled up (a custom with some of the tribes of Esquimaux) that it might be taken for a pigmy, being only two feet four in length. This may account for the otherwise extraordinary assertion of Luke Fox, that he had found bodied in the islands in the ‘Welcome,’ which were only four feet long. Near the large grave was another pile of stones, covering the body of a child, which was coiled up in the same manner. A snow buntin had found its way through the loose stones which composed this little tomb, and its now forsaken, neatly built nest, was found placed on the neck of the child.

“At 9-30, when I left the beach, it was low water. At 11, the tide turned in the offing, and flowed from the eastward. We now observed inshore of us a long overfall, having deep water within it, and running at a mile from the beach to a low point, 5 or 6 miles W.S.W. of us.

“Weighing at 1 ., we lay along shore until arriving at the above point, to which I gave a wide berth, as a heavy sea was breaking over a long shoal which ran from it, and the wind was freshening from the N.W., whence it soon blew a gale, and brought us under close-reefed topsails. A strong weather tide rose so short and high a sea, that for throe hours the ship was unmanageable, and pitched bowsprit under every moment. We now found, that although with our head off this truly dangerous shore, we were nearing it rapidly, and driving bodily down on the shoal. I therefore kept away a couple of points, a plan we now constantly followed, as it was the only method of keeping head-way on the ship in even a moderate sea;