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 trifling things in their hands, vociferating "pilletay" to such a degree that we could hardly hear ourselves speak. Some more oil was obtained in exchange for pieces of iron hoop, and, at a quarter before noon, the wind coming more to the southward, and the ice being somewhat less close than before, we cast off and made sail up the strait.