in its most disgusting form, became for a while the order of the day.  The Esquimaux were now seen wallowing in filth, while some, surfeited, lay stretched upon their skins, enormously distended, and with their friends employed in rolling them about, to assist the operations of oppressed nature.  The roofs of their huts were no longer congealed, but dripping with wet and threatening speedy dissolution.  The air was, in the bone huts, damp, hot, and beyond sufferance offensive with putrid exhalations from the decomposing relics of offals or other animal matter permitted to remain from year to year undisturbed in these horrible sinks.

“What the consequences might have been had this state of affairs long continued, it is not difficult to imagine; but, fortunately for them, an early and gradual dispersion took place, so that by the end of January few individuals were left in the village.  The rest, in divided bodies, established themselves in snow huts upon the sea-ice at some distance from the land.  Before this change had been completed, disorders of an inflammatory character had appeared.  A few went away sick, some were unable to remove, and others taken ill upon the ice, and we heard of the death of several about this period.

“Their distance from the ships at once precluded any effectual assistance being rendered them at their huts, and their removal on board with safety; the complaints of those who died at the huts, therefore, did not come under observation.  It appears, however, to have been acute inflammation of some of the abdominal viscera, very rapid in its career.  In the generality, the disease assumed a more insidious and sub-acute form, under which the patient lingered for a while, and was then either carried off by a diarrhoea, or slowly recovered by the powers of nature.  Three or four individuals, who, with some risk and trouble, were brought to the ships, we were providentially instrumental in recovering; but two others, almost helpless patients, were so far exhausted before their arrival, that the endeavours used were unsuccessful, and death was probably hastened by their removal.

“That affection of the eyes known by the name of snow-blindness, is extremely frequent among these people.  With them it scarcely ever goes beyond painful irritation, while among strangers inflammation is sometimes the consequence.  I have not seen them use any other remedy besides the exclusion of light; but, as a preventive, a wooden eye-screen is worn, very simple in its construction, consisting of a curved piece of wood, six or seven inches long, and ten or twelve lines broad.  It is tied over the eyes like a pair of spectacles, being adapted to the forehead and nose, and hollowed out to favour the motion of the eyelids.  A few rays of light only are admitted through a narrow slit an inch long, cut opposite to each eye.

“There are, upon the whole, no