Toolemak began now to be extremely impatient to return home, his principal anxiety arising, I believe, from a childish desire to know what I should give him for his trouble; and when, in writing a note to Lieutenant Nias, I enumerated the articles I intended to present to him, he expressed more delight than I had ever before seen escape him. Among these was one of the rifle-guns supplied as presents, together with a sufficient quantity of ammunition to last him one summer, after which the gun would probably become useless itself for want of cleaning. It was astonishing to see the readiness with which these people learned to fire at a mark, and the tact they displayed in everything relating to this art. Boys from twelve to sixteen years of age would fire a fowling-piece, for the first time, with perfect steadiness; and the men, with very little practice, would very soon become superior marksmen.[005] As, however, the advantage they could derive from the use of firearms must be of very short duration, and the danger to any careless individuals very considerable, we did not, on any other occasion, consider it prudent to furnish them in this manner. On the morning of the 28th Toolemak had left us for the ships, carrying with him our venison to be left there, and having first explained when and where the Esquimaux catch the fish with which he had supplied us the preceding summer; for it now appeared that they were not found in great abundance, or of that magnitude, in the river, but at the mouth of a very small stream about two miles lower down the creek on the same side. Their method is, to place in the bed of the stream, which is quite narrow, and seldom or never so deep as a man's middle, though running with great force, two or three separate piles of stones, which serve the double purpose of keeping off the force of the stream from themselves, and of narrowing the passage through which the fish have to pass in coming up from the sea to feed; thus giving the people an opportunity of striking them with their spears, and throwing them on the shore without much difficulty.