taken in connexion with that of
November, led us to expect a severe winter.

About the middle of the month of December several of the Esquimaux had
moved from the huts at Igloolik, some taking up their quarters on the
ice at a considerable distance to the northwest, and the rest about a
mile outside the summer station of the tents. At the close of the year
from fifty to sixty individuals had thus decamped, their object being,
like that of other savages on _terra firma_, to increase their means of
subsistence by covering more ground; their movements were arranged so
quietly that we seldom heard of their intentions till they were gone. At
the new stations they lived entirely in huts of snow; and the northerly
and easterly winds were considered by them most favourable for their
fishing, as these served to bring in the loose ice, on which they
principally kill the walruses.

Towards the latter end of January [1823], the accounts from the huts, as
well from the Esquimaux as from our own people, concurred in stating
that the number of the sick, as well as the seriousness of their
complaints, was rapidly increasing there. We had, indeed, scarcely heard
of the illness of a woman named _Kei-m=o=o-seuk_, who, it seemed,
had lately miscarried, when an account arrived of her death. She was one
of the two wives of _Ooyarra_, one of Captain Lyon's fellow-travellers
in the summer, who buried her in the snow, about two hundred yards from
the huts, placing slabs of the same perishable substance over the body,
and cementing them by pouring a little water in the interstices. Such an
interment was not likely to be a very secure one; and, accordingly, a
few days after, the hungry dogs removed the snow and devoured the body.

Captain Lyon gave me the following account of the death and burial of
another poor woman and her child:

"The mother, Poo-too-alook, was about thirty-five years of age, the
child about three years--yet not weaned, and a female; there was
also another daughter, Shega, about twelve or thirteen years of
age, who, as well as her father, was a most attentive nurse. My
hopes were but small, as far as concerned the mother; but the child
was so patient that I hoped, from its docility, soon to accustom it
to soups and nourishing food, as its only complaint was actual
starvation. I screened off a portion of my cabin, and arranged some
bedding for them, in the same manner as the E