CHAPTER III.

Quit the Ikkerasak.  Account of the Kaumayok Mountains, and of Kangertluksoak.  Public Worship on Sunday.  Saeglek and its Inhabitants described.  The Missionaries visit the Esquimaux at Kikkertarsoak.

June 29th.—­We rose soon after two o’clock, and rowed out of the Ikkerasak, with a fair wind.  The sea was perfectly calm and smooth.  Brother Kmoch rowed in the small boat along the foot of the mountains of Kaumayok, sometimes going on shore, while the large boat was making but little way, keeping out at some distance, to avoid the rocks.  The outline of this chain of mountains exhibits the most fanciful figures.  At various points, the rocks descend abruptly into the sea, presenting horrid precipices.  The strand is covered with a black sand.  At the height of about fifty feet from the sea, the rocks have veins of red, yellow, and green stone, running horizontally and parallel; and sometimes in an undulated form.  Above these, they present the appearance of a magnificent colonade, or rather of buttresses, supporting a gothic building, varying in height and thickness, and here and there intersected by wide and deep chasms and glens, running far inland between the mountains.  Loose stones above, have in some places the appearance of statues, and the superior region exhibits all kind of grotesque shapes.  It is by far the most singular and picturesque chain of mountains on this coast.  To the highest part of it we gave the name of St. Pauls, as it is not unlike that cathedral when viewed at a distance, with its dome and two towers.

Before we left the Kaumayok, Brother Kohlmeister landed, and found the beach covered with blocks of stone, in colour white and grey, like statuary marble, but very hard.  We now steered for Kangertluksoak, a winter-station of the Esquimaux, where several of our people had pitched their tents.

At noon, we were off an island, called Eingosiarsuk, (the Little Cup), opposite the Ittiplek, (a flat piece of ground joining two headlands) over which the northern Esquimaux pass in sledges to Okkak, round Kaumayok.  Farther towards the N.W. lies Tuppertalik, a high ridge of mountains, which, from its appearance, we called the Table mountain, having nearly the shape of the mountain so called at the Cape of Good Hope.

To the north lies Nellekartok, the outermost island on leaving the Ikkerasak, and the first of the Kangertluksoak islands.  Behind Tuppertalik, a bay opens called Nappartok (a wood), a winter-habitation, with a little wood higher up the country, about eight or ten hours drive from Okkak.  A good harbour for large vessels is said to be here, called Umiakovitannak, (Broad boat-harbour).  Before the entrance to Nappartok, lies an island, Naujartsit (the Little Sea-gull island).  Seven or eight miles, north of Nappertok, a long flat point runs