In the mean time I sent Mr. Ross to one hill, and ascended another myself, expecting to save the time and trouble of rowing into the nook. I was not a little astonished to find, from my own and Mr. Ross's observations, that there was on the other side of the point a broad and apparently navigable channel, through which the tide was setting to the northward, at the rate of three or four miles an hour. I am thus minute in the discovery of this channel, which afterward promised to be of no small importance, to show how nearly such a place may be approached without the slightest suspicion being entertained of its existence, and the consequent necessity of _close_ examination wherever a passage is to be sought for. We continued our examination, and I despatched Mr. Sherer to the ships for a fresh supply of provisions. On his return on the 10th we proceeded to the westward. In running along the coast with a fresh and favourable breeze, we observed three persons standing on a hill, and, as we continued our course, they followed us at full speed along the rocks. Having sailed into a small sheltered bay, I went up, accompanied by Mr. Bushnan, to meet them on the hills above us. In sailing along the shore we had heard them call out loudly to us, and observed them frequently lift something which they held in their hands; but, on coming up to them, they remained so perfectly mute and motionless, that, accustomed as we had been to the noisy importunities of their more sophisticated brethren, we could scarcely believe them to be Esquimaux. There was, besides, a degree of lankness in the faces of the two men, the very reverse of the plump, round, oily cheeks of those we had before seen. Their countenances at the time impressed me with the idea of Indian rather than of Esquimaux features; but this variety of physiognomy we afterward found not to be uncommon among these people. The men appeared about forty and twenty-two years of age, and were accompanied by a good-looking and good-humoured boy of nine or ten. They each held in their hand a sealskin case or quiver, containing a bow and three or four arrows, with a set of which they willingly parted, on being presented with a knife in exchange. The first looks with which they received us betrayed a mixture of stupidity and apprehension, but both wore off in a few minutes on our making them understand that we wished to go to their habitations. With this request they complied without hesitation, tripping along before us for above two miles over very rough ground, and crossing one or two considerable streams running from a lake into the sea. This they performed with so much quickness that we could with difficulty keep up with them, though they good-naturedly stopped now and then till we overtook them. We were met on our way by two women, from twenty to twenty-five years of age, having each a child at her back; they too accompanied us to their tent, which was situated on a high part of the coast