72-1/2 deg., which has lately become a
common rendezvous of our Davis's Strait fishermen. Of this fact we had,
in the course of the winter, received intimation from these people from
time to time, and had even some reason to believe that our visit to the
Esquimaux of the River Clyde in 1820 was known to them; but what most
excited our interest at this time was the sledge brought by the new
comers, the runner being composed of large single pieces of wood, one of
them painted black over a lead-coloured priming, and the cross-bars
consisting of heading-pieces of oak-buts, one flat board with a
hinge-mark upon it the upper end of a skid or small boat's davit, and
others that had evidently and recently been procured from some ship. On
one of the heading-pieces we distinguished the letters _Brea_--, showing
that the cask had, according to the custom of the whalers, contained
bread on the outward passage. The nature of all these materials led us
to suppose that it must have been procured from some vessel wrecked or
damaged on the coast; and this suspicion was on the following day
confirmed by our obtaining information that, at a place called
Akk=o=odneak, a single day's journey beyond Toonoonek, two ships
like ours had been driven on shore by the ice, and that the people had
gone away in boats equipped for the purpose, leaving one ship on her
beam ends, and the other upright, in which situation the vessels were
supposed still to remain.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113