About the middle of the month of December several of the Esquimaux had moved from the huts at Igloolik, some taking up their quarters on the ice at a considerable distance to the northwest, and the rest about a mile outside the summer station of the tents.  At the close of the year from fifty to sixty individuals had thus decamped, their object being, like that of other savages on terra firma, to increase their means of subsistence by covering more ground; their movements were arranged so quietly that we seldom heard of their intentions till they were gone.  At the new stations they lived entirely in huts of snow; and the northerly and easterly winds were considered by them most favourable for their fishing, as these served to bring in the loose ice, on which they principally kill the walruses.

Towards the latter end of January [1823], the accounts from the huts, as well from the Esquimaux as from our own people, concurred in stating that the number of the sick, as well as the seriousness of their complaints, was rapidly increasing there.  We had, indeed, scarcely heard of the illness of a woman named Kei-m=o=o-seuk, who, it seemed, had lately miscarried, when an account arrived of her death.  She was one of the two wives of Ooyarra, one of Captain Lyon’s fellow-travellers in the summer, who buried her in the snow, about two hundred yards from the huts, placing slabs of the same perishable substance over the body, and cementing them by pouring a little water in the interstices.  Such an interment was not likely to be a very secure one; and, accordingly, a few days after, the hungry dogs removed the snow and devoured the body.

Captain Lyon gave me the following account of the death and burial of another poor woman and her child: 

“The mother, Poo-too-alook, was about thirty-five years of age, the child about three years—­yet not weaned, and a female; there was also another daughter, Shega, about twelve or thirteen years of age, who, as well as her father, was a most attentive nurse.  My hopes were but small, as far as concerned the mother; but the child was so patient that I hoped, from its docility, soon to accustom it to soups and nourishing food, as its only complaint was actual starvation.  I screened off a portion of my cabin, and arranged some bedding for them, in the same manner as the Esquimaux do their own.  Warm broth, dry bedding, and a comfortable cabin, did wonders before evening, and our medical men gave me great hopes.  As an introduction to a system of cleanliness, and preparatory to washing the sick, who were in a most filthy state, I scrubbed Shega and her father from head to foot, and dressed them in new clothes.  During the night I persuaded both mother and child, who were very restless, and constantly moaning, to take a few spoonfuls of soup.  On the morning of the 24th the woman appeared considerably improved, and she both spoke and ate a little.  As she was covered with