people more destitute of curative means than these.  With the exception of the hemorrhage already mentioned, which they duly appreciate, and have been observed to excite artificially to cure headache, they are ignorant of any rational method of procuring relief.  It has not been ascertained that they use a single herb medicinally.  As prophylactics, they wear amulets, which are usually the teeth, bones, or hair of some animal, the more rare apparently the more valuable.  In absolute sickness they depend entirely upon their Angekoks, who, they persuade themselves, have influence over some submarine deities who govern their destiny.  The mummeries of these impostors, consisting in pretended consultations with their oracles, are looked upon with confidence, and their mandates, however absurd, superstitiously submitted to.  These are constituted of unmeaning ceremonies and prohibitions generally affecting the diet, both in kind and mode, but never in quantity.  Seal’s flesh is forbidden, for instance, in one disease, that of the walrus in the other; the heart is denied to some, and the liver to others.  A poor woman, on discovering that the meat she had in her mouth was a piece of fried heart instead of liver, appeared horror-struck; and a man was in equal tribulation at having eaten, by mistake, a piece of meat cooked in his wife’s kettle.

“Personal deformity from malconformation is uncommon; the only instance I remember being that of a young woman, whose utterance was unintelligibly nasal, in consequence of an imperfect development of the palatine bones leaving a gap in the roof of the mouth.”

* * * * *

Whatever may be the abundance sometimes enjoyed by these people, and whatever the maladies occasioned by their too frequent abuse of it, it is certain that they occasionally suffer very severely from the opposite extreme.  A remarkably intelligent woman informed Captain Lyon, that two years ago some Esquimaux arrived at Igloolik from a place near Akkoolee, bringing information that, during a very grievous famine, one party of men had fallen upon another and killed them; and that they afterward subsisted on their flesh, while in a frozen state, but never cooked or even thawed it.  This horrible account was soon after confirmed by Toolemak on board the Fury; and though he was evidently uneasy at our having heard the story, and conversed upon it with reluctance, yet, by means of our questions, he was brought to name, upon his fingers, five individuals who had been killed upon this occasion.  Of the fact, therefore, there can be no doubt; but it is certain, also, that we ourselves scarcely regarded it with greater horror than those who related it; and the occurrence may be considered similar to those dreadful instances on record, even among civilized nations, of men devouring one another, in wrecks or boats, when rendered desperate by the sufferings of actual starvation.