quite solid except close to the shores, and soon made two or three holes for a hook and line, the thickness of the ice in the middle being from six to seven feet.  The Esquimaux fishhook is generally composed of a piece of ivory, having a hook of pointed iron, without a barb, let into it.  The ivory they consider useful in attracting the salmon, but they also bait the hook with a piece of blubber well cleared of its oil by chewing, and securely tied on with a thread of sinew, so as to cover nearly the whole of the hook.  A small piece of bone, reindeer’s horn, or wood, serves as a rod, and with this they keep the bait constantly in motion up and down, the bait being from one to three feet below the surface of the ice.  Previous, however, to commencing the fishery, the old lady, who took the principal part in this employment, muttered some words, to me altogether incomprehensible, over the hole, to which Toolemak, in a formal manner, added something about fish and Kabloonas; and the whole of this preparatory ceremony seemed intended to propitiate the spirit to whose department the salmon particularly belonged.  The lady (for it seems she is a female) did not, however, appear to lend a very favourable ear to our wants or Toolemak’s rhetoric; for, after many hours’ patient trial on this and the following day, only two fish were seen and one caught to repay our labour.

On the 27th Toolemak and his wife went over to a small shallow lake, on the opposite side of the river, where they caught three or four fish of the salmon kind, but none more than one pound in weight.  He then came back to the tent, and made a small spear according to their own fashion; but with this, to his great disappointment, he could not strike a single fish.  A sort of fish-gig, which we made out of four large hooks lashed back to back at the end of a light staff, succeeded much better, the bait being played in the usual manner to attract the fish, which were then hooked up with great ease and certainty by this instrument.  In this manner we soon caught a dozen of the same kind as before; and the rest of our party had in the mean time killed a deer.

Toolemak began now to be extremely impatient to return home, his principal anxiety arising, I believe, from a childish desire to know what I should give him for his trouble; and when, in writing a note to Lieutenant Nias, I enumerated the articles I intended to present to him, he expressed more delight than I had ever before seen escape him.  Among these was one of the rifle-guns supplied as presents, together with a sufficient quantity of ammunition to last him one summer, after which the gun would probably become useless itself for want of cleaning.  It was astonishing to see the readiness with which these people learned to fire at a mark, and the tact they displayed in everything relating to this art.  Boys from twelve to sixteen years of age would fire a fowling-piece, for the first time, with perfect steadiness; and the men, with very little practice, would very soon become superior marksmen.[005] As, however, the advantage they could derive from the use of firearms must be of very short duration, and the danger to any careless individuals very considerable, we did not, on any other occasion, consider it prudent to furnish them in this manner.