Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/432



Kalutunah grew more sad than I had ever before seen him, when I spoke to him of the fortunes of his own people. "Alas!" said he, "we will soon be all gone." I told him that I would come back, and that white men would live for many years near Etah. "Come back soon," said he, "or there will be none here to welcome you!"

To contemplate the destiny of this little tribe is indeed painful. There is much in this rude people deserving of admiration. Their brave and courageous struggles for a bare subsistence, against what would seem to us the most disheartening obstacles, often being wholly without food for days together and never obtaining it without encountering danger, makes their hold on life very precarious. The sea is their only harvest-field; and, having no boats in which to pursue the game, they have only to await the turning tide or changing season to open cracks, along which they wander, seeking the seal and walrus which come there to breathe. The uncertain fortunes of the hunt often lead them in the winter time to shelter themselves in rude hovels of snow; and, in summer, the migrating water-fowl come to substitute the seal and walrus, which, when the ice-fields have floated off, they can rarely catch.

From the information which I obtained through Hans and Kalutunah, I estimated the tribe to number about one hundred souls,—a very considerable diminution since Dr. Kane left them, in 1855. Hans made for me a rude map of the coast from Cape York to Smith Sound, and set down upon it all of the villages, if by such name the inhabited places may be called. These places are always close by the margin of the sea. They rarely consist of more than one