since the morning, the weight on the sledge being about twelve hundred pounds, and half of the road very indifferent.  It is the custom of the Esquimaux, even when meat is most abundant, to feed these invaluable animals only once a day, and that in the evening, which they consider to agree with them better than more frequent meals; we always observed the same practice with ours, and found that they performed their journeys the better for it.

On the morning of the 25th, while passing close to a point of land, Toolemak suddenly stopped his sledge, and he and his wife walked to the shore, whither I immediately followed them.  The old woman, preceding her husband, went up to a circle of stones, of which there were two or three on the spot, and, kneeling down within it, cried most loudly and bitterly for the space of two or three minutes, while Toolemak also shed abundant tears, but without any loud lamentation.  On inquiring presently after, I found that this was the spot on which their tent had been pitched in the summer, and that the bed-place on which the old woman knelt had been that of their adopted son Noogloo, whose premature death we had all so much regretted.  The grief displayed on this occasion seemed to have much sincerity in it, and there was something extremely touching in this quiet but unaffected tribute of sorrow on the spot, which so forcibly reminded them of the object of their parental affection.  I have much gratification in adding, in this place, another circumstance, which, though trifling in itself, deserves to be noticed as doing honour to these people’s hearts.  They had always shown particular attachment to a dog they had sold me, and which bore the same name as a young man, a son of their own, whom they had formerly lost.  In the course of this journey, the old woman would constantly call the dog “Eerninga” (son), which the affectionate animal never failed to repay by jumping up and licking her face all over, whenever his trace would allow him; and at night, after Toolemak had fed his own dogs, he frequently brought to our tent an extra piece of meat, expressly for Ann=owtalik, to whom these poor people seemed to take a mournful pleasure in now transferring their affection.

Landing close to the head of the inlet on the south shore, we proceeded with difficulty a couple of miles over land till we came to a river, the limits of which the warmth of the weather was just rendering discernible, and which, our guides informed us was to be our fishing place.  It was interesting to observe that, in every case of doubt as to the situation of a place, the best route, or the most advisable method of overcoming any difficulty, Toolemak invariably referred to his wife; and a consultation of some minutes was held by these two before they would determine on what was to be done, or even return an answer to our questions respecting it.  Pitching our tents upon the banks of the river, we went upon the ice, which was still