It was exceedingly interesting and amusing to observe the feelings of amazement and delight expressed by those barbarous but good-humoured and intelligent people at everything they saw.  While food was preparing for them, they were taken round the ship, on deck and below, and the sailors explained, in pantomime, the uses of everything.  They laughed, and exclaimed, and shouted, and even roared with delight, and touched everything with their fingers, just as monkeys are wont to do when let loose.  Captain Guy took Aninga and her tall husband, Awatok, to the cabin, where, through the medium of Meetuck, he explained the object of their expedition, and questioned the chief as to his knowledge of the country.  Unfortunately Awatok and his band had travelled from the interior to the coast, and never having been more than twenty or thirty miles to the north of the Bay of Mercy, could give no information either in regard to the formation of the coast or the possibility of Europeans having wintered there.  In fact, neither he nor his countrymen had ever seen Europeans before, and they were so much excited that it was difficult to obtain coherent answers to questions.  The captain, therefore, postponed further inquiries until they had become somewhat accustomed to the novelty of their position.

Meanwhile, David Mizzle furnished them with a large supply of pea-soup, which they seemed to relish amazingly.  Not so, however, the salt pork with which it had been made.  They did, indeed, condescend to eat it, but they infinitely preferred a portion of raw walrus-flesh, which had been reserved as food for the dogs, and which they would speedily have consumed had it not been removed out of their reach.  Having finished this, they were ordered to return to their camp on the ice beside the ship, and a vigorous barter was speedily begun.

First of all, however, a number of presents were made to them, and it would really have done your heart good, reader, to have witnessed the extravagant joy displayed by them on receiving such trifles as bits of hoop-iron, beads, knives, scissors, needles, etc.  Iron is as precious among them as gold is among civilized people.  The small quantities they possessed of it had been obtained from the few portions of wrecks that had drifted ashore in their ice-bound land.  They used it for pointing their spear-heads and harpoons, which, in default of iron, were ingeniously made of ivory from the tusks of the walrus and the horn of the narwal.  A bit of iron, therefore, was received with immense glee, and a penny looking-glass with shouts of delight.

But the present which drew forth the most uproarious applause was a Union Jack, which the captain gave to their chief, Awatok.  He was in the cabin when it was presented to him.  On seeing its gaudy colours unrolled, and being told that it was a gift to himself and his wife, he caught his breath, and stared, as if in doubt, alternately at the flag and the captain; then he gave vent to a tremendous shout, seized the flag, hugged it in his arms, and darted up on deck literally roaring with delight.  The sympathetic hearts of the natives on the ice echoed the cry before they knew the cause of it; but when they beheld the prize, they yelled, and screamed, and danced, and tossed their arms in the air in the most violent manner.