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I may here remark that as these people distinguish the Wager River by the name of Oōtkŏŏsĕĕksălik, we were at first led to conjecture that they procured their pots, or the material for making them, in that neighbourhood; this, however, they assured us was not the case, the whole of them coming from Akkoolee, where the stone is found in very high situations.

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 afterwards subsisted on their flesh while in a frozen state, but never cooked nor even thawed it.

Ewerat and some others had been a considerable distance up the Wager River; but no record had been preserved among them of Captain Middleton’s visit to that inlet about the middle of the last century. Of the continental shore to the westward of Akkoolee, the Esquimaux invariably disclaimed the slightest personal knowledge; for no land can be seen in that direction from the hills.

Not one of them had been by water round to Akkoolee, but several by land; in which mode of travelling they only consider that country from three to five days’ journey from Repulse Bay.

The imperfect arithmetic of these people, which resolves every number above ten into one comprehensive word, prevented our obtaining any very certain information respecting the population of this part of North America and its adjacent islands. The principal stations of these people not visited by us are Akkoolee, Toonoonee-roochiuh, Peelig, and Toonoonek, of whose situation I have already spoken.

In Greenland this animal is known only by vague and exaggerated report; on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay it has certainly been seen, though very rarely, by the present inhabitants; and the eldest person belonging to the Winter Island tribe had never seen one to the eastward of Eiwillik, where, as well as at Akkōōleĕ, they are said to be numerous on the banks of fresh-water lakes and streams.