Toolooak having been concerned in killing one of the seals just brought in, it fell to his mother’s lot to dissect it, the neitiek being the only animal which the women are permitted to cut up.  We had therefore an opportunity of seeing this filthy operation once more performed, and entirely by the old lady herself, who was soon up to her elbows in blood and oil.  Before a knife is put into the animal, as it lies on its back, they pour a little water into its mouth, and touch each flipper and the middle of the belly with a little lamp-black and oil taken from the under part of the lamp.  What benefit was expected from this preparatory ceremony we could not learn, but it was done with a degree of superstitious care and seriousness, that bespoke its indispensable importance.  The boys came eagerly into the hut as usual, and held out their foreheads for the old woman to stick the charms upon them; and it was not till now that we learned from Iligliuk the efficacy of this very useful custom.  As soon as this dirty operation was at an end, during which the numerous by-standers amused themselves in chewing the intestines of the seal, the strangers retired to their own huts, each bearing a small portion of the flesh and blubber, while our hosts enjoyed a hearty meal of boiled meat and hot gravy soup.  Young Sioutkuk ate at least three pounds of solid meat in the first three hours after our arrival at the huts, besides a tolerable proportion of soup, all which his mother gave him whenever he asked it, without the smallest remark of any kind.  We now found that they depended on catching seals alone for their subsistence, there being no walruses in this neighbourhood.  As they were several miles from any open water, their mode of killing them was entirely confined to watching for the animals coming up in the holes they make through the ice.

In the course of the evening our conversation happened to turn on the Indians, a people whom none of these Esquimaux had ever seen; but with whose ferocity and decided hostility to their own nation they seemed to be well acquainted.  They described, also, their peculiar manner of paddling their canoes, and were aware that they made use of the kind of show-shoes which we showed them.  When I related to them, as well as I was able, the massacre of the Esquimaux recorded by Hearne, and gave them to understand that the Indians spared neither age nor sex, it seemed to chill them with horror, and I was almost sorry that I had told them the story.

April 11.—­We were now glad to begin making some show of re-equipping the ships for sea; for though this was a business that might, if necessary, have been very well accomplished in two or three weeks, it was better to employ the men in occupations having an evident and determinate object, than in those less obviously useful ones to which it was necessary to resort during the winter.  We therefore brought down some of the boats to the ships to repair, put up the forge on the ice, and built a snow house over it, and set about various other jobs, which made the neighbourhood of the ships assume a busy and bustling appearance.