, to keep the
whole fabric in an erect position, a line of thong is extended from the
top, on the side where the door is, to a larger stone placed at some
distance. The door consists merely of two flaps, contrived so as to
overlap one another, and to be secured by a stone laid upon them at the
bottom. This entrance faces the south or southeast; and as the wind was
now blowing fresh from that quarter, and thick snow beginning to fall,
these habitations did not impress us at first sight with a very
favourable idea of the comfort and accommodation afforded by them. The
interior of the tents may be described in few words. On one side of the
end next the door is the usual stone lamp, resting on rough stones, with
the _ootkooseek_, or cooking pot, suspended over it; and round this are
huddled together, in great confusion, the rest of the women's utensils,
together with great lumps of raw seahorse flesh and blubber, which at
this season they enjoyed in most disgusting abundance. At the inner end
of the tent, which is also the broadest, and occupying about one third
of the whole apartment, their skins are laid as a bed, having under them
some of the _andromeda tetragona_ when the ground is hard, but in this
case placed on the bare dry shingle. Comfortless as these simple
habitations appeared to us in a snowstorm, they are, in general, not
deficient in warmth as summer residences; and, being easily removed from
place to place, they are certainly well suited to the wants and habits
of this wandering people. When a larger habitation than usual is
required, they contrive, by putting two of these together, to form a
sort of double tent somewhat resembling a marquee, and supported by two
poles. The difference between these tents and the one I had seen in Lyon
Inlet the preceding autumn, struck me as remarkable, these having no
_wall_ of stones around them, as is usual in many that we have before
met with, nor do I know their reason for adopting this different mode of
construction.

Even if it were not the natural and happy disposition of these people to
be pleased, and to place implicit confidence wherever kind treatment is
experienced, that confidence would soon have been ensured by our
knowledge of their friends and relations to the southward, and the
information which we were enabled to give respecting their late and
intended movements. This, while it excited in them extreme surprise,
served also at once to remove all distrust or