By the information
afterward obtained when nearer the spot, we had reason to suppose this
land must reach beyond the seventy-second degree of latitude in a
northerly direction; so that these people possess a personal knowledge
of the Continent of America and its adjacent islands, from that parallel
to Chesterfield Inlet in 63-3/4 deg., being a distance of more than five
hundred miles reckoned in a direct line, besides the numerous turnings
and windings of the coast along which they are accustomed to travel.
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 Indians they know enough by tradition to hold them in
considerable dread, on account of their cruel and ferocious manners.
When, on one occasion, we related the circumstances of the inhuman
massacre described by Hearne, they crowded round us in the hut,
listening with mute and almost breathless attention; and the mothers
drew their children closer to them, as if to guard them from the
dreadful catastrophe.
The Esquimaux take some animals in traps, and by a very ingenious
contrivance of this kind they caught two wolves at Winter Island.
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