In January and February 1783, the famine increased among the natives, and the brethren redoubled their endeavours to supply their necessities, which however appears only to have had the effect of encouraging their indolence, for so long as they could get food in this way they would not stir abroad, or make the least exertion to supply their own wants. If urged to go in search of food, they alleged that hunger prevented them; "for," said they, "when we go out and catch nothing it makes us the more hungry." If advised to go and hunt, they replied, "We have no gun." Yet did not this waywardness tire the patient benevolence of the missionaries; but, like children of their Father in heaven, who causeth his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust, when the famine had reached its height, brother Lister sent to Okkak to fetch a sledge load of dried fish. Ere they arrived, news was brought that the Esquimaux in the island of Kerniteksut, two hours distant from Nain, had been so fortunate as to find a dead whale. On hearing this, the whole inhabitants of the country hastened to the place to satisfy their hunger; an immense number of foxes came for the same purpose; these they killed, and thus the starving natives were supplied both with food and riches, the skins of these animals forming a principal article of exchange with the Europeans. But this last occurrence proved that wealth among savages, as well as in more civilized countries, is not always a blessing; it renewed anew the desire to go to the south, as the greater part were now in circumstances to carry merchandize thither, to barter with the good and kind Europeans. Nothing then was spoken of but trade in the south, and they could hardly wait for the season to undertake the journey. When the brethren visited them in the spring, they treated them with the greatest indifference and even insolence; the gospel of Jesus found no access to them; and though, through a certain dread of the missionaries, which they could not cast off, they were not so outrageously brutal as formerly; yet in secret they returned to the indulgence of many of their vile practices. Early in the approaching summer, more than eighty Esquimaux went from the country round Nain to the south, among whom were nineteen of the baptized, and even Peter, the first fruits of the mission, accompanied them. The majority had determined to spend the winter there, and get plenty to eat, and tobacco, and guns, and powder, and ball, and other articles which they could not purchase so advantageously from the brethren. From the country round Okkak too, above an hundred of the natives went south in four boats, among whom were Luke and his family, who were baptized.