“On the morning of the 1st February, a number of distant figures were seen moving over the ice, and, when they were viewed through glasses, the cry was raised, ‘Esquimaux! Esquimaux!’ As it was of great importance to deal courteously and discreetly with these strangers, the two commanders formed a party of six, who walked in files behind each other, that they might cause no alarm. The Esquimaux then formed themselves into a line of twenty-one, advanced slowly, and at length made a full stop. In this order they saluted the strangers by the usual movement of beating their breasts. They were substantially clothed in rich and dark deer-skins, and appeared a much more quiet and orderly race than their rude countrymen of the Savage Islands. On the English producing their precious commodities, knives, nails, and needles, an active traffic was set on foot; and the females, on seeing that much importance was attached to the skins which formed their clothing, began immediately to strip off those with which their fair persons were covered. The captains felt alarm for the consequences, under a temperature more than fifty degrees below the freezing point; but were soon consoled by discerning underneath another comfortable suit. They were now cordially invited to enter their habitations, to which they agreed most readily, only that there appeared no habitations to enter. However, they were led to a hole in the snow, and instructed to place themselves on their hands and knees, in which position, having crept through a long winding passage, they arrived at a little hall with a dome-shaped roof, whence doors opened into three apartments, each occupied by a separate family. These proved to be five distinct mansions, tenanted by sixty-four men, women, and children. The materials and structure of these abodes were still more singular than their position. Snow, the chief product of the northern tempests, became here a protection against its own cold. It was formed into curved slabs of about two feet long and half a foot thick, put together by a most judicious masonry, so as to present a species of dome-shaped structures, rising six or seven feet above the ground, and about fourteen or sixteen feet in diameter. The mode of inserting the key-slab, which bound the whole together, would, it is said, have been satisfactory to the eye of a regularly-bred artist. A plate of ice in the roof served as a window, and admitted the light as through ground glass; which, when it shone on the interior mansions, in their first state of pure and beautiful transparency, produced soft and glittering tints of green and blue. But, alas! ere long, accumulated dirt, smoke, and offal, converted these apartments into a scene of blackness and stench. This little village appeared at first like a cluster of hillocks amid the snow; but successive falls filled up the vacuities, and converted it almost into a smooth surface, so that even boys and dogs were seen