The wolves had now begun to do us some damage; for not even the sails that were fastened round the house and observatory could escape their ravenous fangs, and they had thus, in the course of a single night, much injured two of our studding-sails.  We set traps for them on the ice, and also large shark-hooks, secured with chains and baited with meat; but the former they entered and destroyed, and the latter was always found broken or bent, without securing the depredators.  These animals were indeed so hungry and fearless as to take away some of the Esquimaux dogs in a snow-house near the Hecla’s stern, though the men were at the time within a few yards of them.

From the circumstance of Captain Lyon and myself having accidentally gone into different huts on our first visits to the village (for by this name I believe we must venture to dignify the united abodes of more than sixty human beings), particular individuals among the Esquimaux had already, in a manner, attached themselves to each of us.  Captain Lyon now informed me that one of his acquaintance, a remarkably fine and intelligent young man, named _=Ay~ok~et_, had given him to understand that he had somewhere or other seen Kabloona[*] people like ourselves only a few months ago.  This being the case, there seemed no reason why, if it were made worth his while, he should not be able to see them again in the course of next summer.  Anxious to profit by this unexpected mode of communication, I requested Captain Lyon to endeavour to direct Ayoket’s attention to the scheme of conveying a letter from us to the persons of whom he spoke.

[Footnote:  European.]

On the 7th I paid another visit to the huts, where I found scarcely anybody but women and children, the whole of the men, with the exception of the two oldest, having gone on a sealing excursion to the northeastern side of the island.  One of the women, named Il=igliuk, a sister of the lad Toolooak, who favoured us with a song, struck us as having a remarkably soft voice, an excellent ear, and a great fondness for singing, for there was scarcely any stopping her when she had once begun.  We had, on their first visit to the ships, remarked this trait in Iligliuk’s disposition, when she was listening for the first time to the sound of the organ, of which she seemed never to have enough; and almost every day she now began to display some of that superiority of understanding for which she was so remarkably distinguished.  A few of the women learned several of our names to-day, and I believe all thought us Angekoks[*] of a very superior class, when we repeated to them all round, by the assistance of our books, the names of all their husbands, obtained on board the preceding day.  On our way back to the ships we saw a party of them, with their dogs, returning over the hill from the northeastward; and we afterward met another of eight or ten, who had walked round by the southeast point on the ice, all alike unsuccessful, after being out in the wind for six hours, with the thermometer from 18 to 22 degrees below zero.  Thus hardly did these people obtain their daily subsistence at this severe season of the year.