oung children.
Upon the whole, not less than one hundred of the natives visited
the ships in the course of the evening.

These people possessed in an eminent degree the disposition to
steal all they could lay their hands on, which has almost
universally been imputed to every tribe of Esquimaux hitherto
visited by Europeans. They tried more than once the art of picking
our pockets, and were as bold and unembarrassed as ever
immediately after detection. It is impossible to describe the
horribly disgusting manner in which they sat down, as soon as they
felt hungry, to eat their raw blubber, and to suck the oil
remaining on the skins we had just emptied, the very smell of
which, as well as the appearance, was to us almost insufferable.
The disgust which our seaman could not help expressing at this
sight seemed to create in the Esquimaux the most malicious
amusement; and when our people turned away, literally unable to
bear the sight without being sick, they would, as a good joke
among themselves, run after them, holding out a piece of blubber
or raw seal's flesh dripping with oil and filth, as if inviting
them to partake of it. Both the men and women were guilty of still
more disgusting indecencies, which seemed to afford them amazing
diversion. A worse trait even than all these was displayed by two
women alongside the Hecla, who, in a manner too unequivocal to be
misunderstood, offered to barter their children for some article
of trifling value, beginning very deliberately to strip them of
their clothes, which they did not choose to consider as included
in the intended bargain.

Upon the whole, it was impossible for us not to receive a very
unfavourable impression of the general behaviour and moral
character of the natives of this part of Hudson's Strait, who seem
to have acquired, by an annual intercourse with our ships for
nearly a hundred years, many of the vices which unhappily attend a
first intercourse with the civilized world, without having imbibed
any of the virtues or refinements which adorn and render it happy.

Early on the morning of the 22d a number of canoes repeated their
visit to us, the Esquimaux having hauled them upon a piece of ice
to lodge for the night. In the forenoon an _oomiak_ also came from
the shore, and as no intercourse with them was permitted till
after divine service, they became very impatient to barter their
commodities, and walked on the ice alongside the ships, with a
number of tr