_Sunday, July 31._--I had inquired at what hour the worship would begin this day, and, with some hesitancy, had been answered, "At half past nine." But the Colonel also had asked, and his interlocutor, after consulting a card, said, "At ten o'clock." At ten we went ashore. Finding the chapel-door still locked, I seated myself on a rock in front of the mission-house, to wait. The sun was warm (the first warm day for a month); the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads; I sat there long, wearily beating them off. Faces peeped out at me from the windows, then withdrew. Presently Bradford joined me, and began also to fight mosquitoes. More faces at the windows; but when I looked towards them, thinking to discover some token of hospitable invitation, they quickly disappeared. After half an hour, the master of the supply-ship came up, and entered into conversation; in a minute one of the brethren appeared at the door, and invited him to enter, but without noticing Bradford and myself. I took my skiff and rowed to the schooner. Fifteen minutes later the chapel-bell rang. I confess to some spleen that day against the missionaries. When I expressed it, Captain French, the pilot, an old, prudent, pious man, "broke out." "Them are traders," said he. "I don't call 'em missionaries; I call 'em traders. They live in luxury; the natives work for 'em, and get for pay just what they choose to give 'em. They fleece the Esquimaux; they take off of 'em all but the skin. They are just traders!" My spleen did not last. There was some cause of coldness,--I know not what. The missionaries afterwards became cordial, visited the schooner, and exchanged presents with us. I believe them good men. If their relation to the natives assume in some degree a pecuniary aspect, it is due to the necessity of supporting the mission by the profits of traffic. If they preserve a stately distance toward the Esquimaux, it is to retain influence over them. If they allow the native mind to confound somewhat the worship of God with the worship of its teachers, it is that the native mind cannot get beyond personal relations, and must worship something tangible. That they are not at all entangled in the routine and material necessities of their position I do not assert; that they do not carry in it something of noble and self-forgetful duty nothing I have seen will persuade me. _August 1._--We go to push our explorations among the Esquimaux, and invite the reader to make one of the party. Enter a hut. The door is five feet high,--that is, the height of the wall. Stoop a little,--ah, there goes a hat to the ground, and a hand to a hurt pate! One must move carefully in these regions, which one hardly knows whether to call sub- or supra-terranean.