individual with whom
we had been intimate happened to be implicated in a theft, the
circumstance became a subject of satisfaction too manifest to be
repressed, and we were told of it with expressions of the most
triumphant exultation on every occasion. It was, indeed, curious, though
ridiculous, to observe that, even among these simple people, and even in
this obscure corner of the globe, that little gossip and scandal so
commonly practised in small societies among us were very frequently
displayed. This was especially the case with the women, of whom it was
not uncommon to see a group sitting in a hut for hours together, each
relating her _quota_ of information, now and then mimicking the persons
of whom they spoke, and interlarding their stories with jokes evidently
at the expense of their absent neighbours, though to their own infinite
amusement.

I have already, in the course of the foregoing narrative, hinted at the
want of gratitude evinced by these people in their transactions with us.
Some exceptions, for they were only exceptions, and rare ones, to this
rule, have been mentioned as they occurred; but in general, however
considerable the benefit conferred, it was forgotten in a day; and this
forgetfulness was not unfrequently aggravated by their giving out that
their benefactor had been so shabby as to make them no present at all.
Even those individuals who, either from good behaviour or superior
intelligence, had been most noticed by us, and particularly such as had
slept on board the ships, and whether in health or sickness had received
the most friendly treatment from everybody, were in general just as
indifferent as the rest; and I do not believe that any one among them
would have gone half a mile out of his road, or have sacrificed the most
trivial self-gratification to serve us. Okotook and Iligliuk, whom I had
most loaded with presents, and who had never offered me a single free
gift in return, put into my hand, at the time of their first removal
from Winter Island, a dirty, crooked model of a spear, so shabbily
constructed that it had probably been already refused as an article of
barter by many of the ship's company. On my accepting this, from an
unwillingness to affront them, they were uneasy and dissatisfied till I
had given them something in return, though their hands were full of the
presents which I had just made them. Selfishness is, in fact, almost
without exception, their universal characterist