nstituted, as they well knew, a forcible claim upon
our charity; and, with this view, it was sure to excite a whine of
sympathy and commiseration whenever we visited or spoke of him. When,
however, a journey of ten miles was to be performed over the ice, they
left him to find his way with a stick in the best manner he could, while
the young and robust ones were many of them drawn on sledges. There is,
indeed, no doubt that, had their necessities or mode of life required a
longer journey than he could thus have accomplished, they would have
pushed on like the Indians, and left a fellow-creature to perish. It was
certainly considered incumbent on his son to support him, and he was
fortunate in that son's being a very good man; but a few more such
journeys to a man of seventy would not impose this encumbrance upon him
much longer. Illumea, the mother of several grown-up children, lived
also in the same hut with her other relations. She did not, however,
interfere, as in Greenland, with the management of her son's domestic
concerns, though his wife was half an idiot. She was always badly
clothed, and, even in the midst of plenty, not particularly well-fed,
receiving everything more as an act of charity than otherwise; and she
will probably be less and less attended to, in proportion as she stands
more in need of assistance.

The different families appear always to live on good terms with each
other, though each preserves its own habitation and property as
distinct and independent as any housekeeper in England. The persons
living under one roof, who are generally closely related, maintain a
degree of harmony among themselves which is scarcely ever disturbed. The
more turbulent passions which, when unrestrained by religious principle,
or unchecked by the dread of human punishment, usually create so much
havoc in the world, seem to be very seldom excited in the breasts of
these people, which renders personal violence or immoderate anger
extremely rare among them; and one may sit in a hut for a whole day, and
never observe an angry word or look, except in driving out the dogs. If
they take an offence, it is more common for them to show it by the more
quiet method of sulkiness, and this they now and then tried as a matter
of experiment with us. Okotook, who was often in this humour, once
displayed it to some of our gentlemen in his own hut, by turning his
back and frequently repeating the expression "good-by," as a broad hint
to