delight, the sails flapped loosely in the wind, then in a moment were refilled by the strong breeze and the boat swept in toward us.
The appearance of a sail-boat in Chesterfield Inlet, and especially at this late season of the year, puzzled us much, and as it drew nearer we watched it intently. It had the appearance of being a large whale-boat, and was evidently well manned, but by whom we could not tell. Whoever they might be, perhaps they could be hired to take us down the coast of the Bay to Churchill, and if so we might be saved weeks of hard travel on a very exposed and dangerous coast. We sincerely hoped that the strange mariners, or at least their boat, might be available for the voyage. When they had approached sufficiently near we could see that there were Eskimos on board, and a moment later their anchor was cast out, and several of them, making a sort of raft out of three kyacks they had in tow, paddled in to the rocky shore where we stood. In vain did we look for the face of a white man. They were all natives, and as we gazed at each other in mutual amazement, I broke the silence with the question, "Kudloonah petehungetoo?" (Is there no white man?) "Petehungetoo" (There is none), was the reply, so the whole party, which consisted of several families, men, women and children, were Eskimos, and with them in their boat they had their dogs and other necessary hunting and camping equipments. They informed us they were moving up into the interior from the coast to spend the winter, and so it was not surprising that nothing we could offer would induce them to consider the question of taking us down to Churchill or of selling their boat to us. We offered
