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- CAPTAIN PARRY'S VOYAGE.…

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CAPTAIN PARRY'S VOYAGE. 1 CONTINUED. [THE privations which we endure, while in the enjovment of health, are the lightest of human afflictions. It is, when subdued by sickness, that the want of comforts imposes real misery. The following picture of sickness among theEsquimaux ought to teach the most unhappy Europeans pa- tience/and even gratitude, that our worst calami- ties are so light, by comparison with the sufferings of on- fellow creatures in the inhospitable regions, in which the scene is laid.] '• On the 23d Takkee-likkee-ta came to the Hecla according to his promise, and was supplied with various comforts for his wife and child. As however their principal want of comfort arose from the coldness and moisture of their present quarters, Captain Lyon proposed to him to bring them to the Hecla. To this the man joyfully as- sented and, being furnishd with a sledge and dogs soon brought the invalids on board, where they were comfortably lodged in Captain Lyon's cabin, and attended with all the care that their situation required, and that humanity could sug- gest. Besides the child that vnts ill, another also ecomranied them named Sheya, pleasing and uncommonly intelligent girl about eleven years of age whom we now found to have been one ol the individuals I saw in Lyon Inlet during the summer of 1S21. In the evening I sent my servant to the village, for the purpose of going into all the huts (which from the lowness and indescriba- ble filth of the passages was no easy or pleasant task) to see what other sick there might be. He reported, on his return, that a young man named Piccooyak, a great favourite with our officers and ship's company, was in a very weak condition, and that his wife and another female were lying beside him to keep him warm, at the same time crying most piteously. Early on the following morning, therefore, I despatched Mr. Crawford on the sledge to bring Viccooak tc.ibe ship but alas his miseries here were at end, for he had breathed his last on the preceding evening, within an hour after we had first been informed of his illness His wife Kogo, a young woman lately brought to bed, was lying about the snow beside the road, and making lamentations that bespoke much more sincere grief than the cutting off of hair which the widows here did not always practice. We did not, however, at this time know what bit- ter cause of lamentation this event was to prove to poor Koga. Mr. Crawford thought he could not now bet- ter execute his instructions than in bringing to the ship a young man of the name of Kooeetseek, who was very much debilitated by the long eon. tinuance of a rheumatic complaint; ha wall ac. cordingly lodged in our sick bay together with his sister, an intelligent child about nine years of age, named Kirko-warioo, who accompanied him as his nurse. Ttiviatter soon became domesticat- ed among us, and, being well cleaned and dressed in European dothes, amused us greatly by her vivacity and intelligence. Indeed it required no long acquaintance with this poor child, to con- vince us that art and education might easily have made her equal or superior to ourselves, or, as some of our gentlemen at the time remarked, that there were in reality more shades of dirt than or any ether difference subsisting between H*. Scarcely had these arrangements been made OR board the Fury, "en w,. heart of the death I of Capt. Lyon's patient, her extremely debilitated state rendering it impossible to rally her by any meptns that could be devised. The circumstances attending the death and burial of this poor woman and her child, affording an insight into some of the customs of the Esquimaux on these occasions, are thus related by Capt. Lyon, to whom I am in- debted for the account. 4 The mother Poo-too-atook was about thirty five years of age, the child about three years—yet not weaned, and a female there was also ano- ther Shaga, about twelve or thirteen years of age, who as well as her father was a most attentive nurse. My hopes were but small as far as con- cerned the mother, but the child was so patient that I hoped from its docility soon to accustom it to soups and nourishing food, as its only com- plaint was actual starvation. I screened off a portion of my cabin, and arranged some bedding for them, in the same manner as the Esquimaux do their own.—Warm broth, dry bedding, and a comfortable cabin did wonders before evening, and our medical men gave me great hopes. As an introduction to a system of cleanliness, and preparatory to washing the sick who were in a most filthy state, I scrubbed Shega and her father erom head to footand dressed them in new clothes. During the night I persuaded both mother and child, who were very restless and constantly moaning, to take a few spoonfuls of soup. On the morning of the 21th the woman appeared con- siderably improved, and she both spoke and ate a little. As she was covered with so thick a coat- ing of dirt that it could be taken off in scales.— [ obtained her consent to wash her face and hands a little before noon. The man and his daughter I now came to my table to look at some things I had laid out to amuse them and after a few mi- nutes Shega lifted the curtain to look at her mo- ther, when she again let it fall and trembling told us she was dead. "• The husband sighed heavily, the daughter burst into tears, and the poor child made the mo- ment more distressing by calling in a plaintive tone on its mother, by whose side was lying. Ide- terinined oil burying the woman on shore, and the husband was much pleased at my promising that the body should be drawn on a sledge by men in- stead of dogs for to our horror Takkeelikkeeta had told me that dogs had eaten part of Keiinoo- seuk, and that when he left the huts with his wife .s I e(I it. one was devouring the body as he passed it. Takkeelikkeeta now prepared to dress the dead body, and in the first place stopped his nose with deer's hair and put on his gloves, seeming unwilling that his naked hand should come in contact with the corpse. I observed in this oc- cupation his care that every article of dress should be as carefully placed as when his wife was living, and having drawn the boots on the wrong legs, lie pulled them off again and put them properly this ceremony finished,the deceased was sewed up in a hammock, and at the husband's urgent request her face was left uncovered. An officer who was present at the time agreed with me in fancying that the man, from his words and actions, intimated a wish that the living child mighi be enclosed with its mother. We may have been mistaken, but there is an equal probability that we were right in our conjecture; for according to Crantz and Egede the (ireinlaii(ters were in the habit of burying their motherless infants from a persuasion that they must otherwise starve to death, and also from being unable to bear the cries of the littk* ones while lingering for several days without susten- ance for no woman will give them any share of their milk, which they consider as the exclusive property of their own offsping. My dogs being carefully tied up at the man's request, a party of our people accompauied by me drew the body to the shore, where we made a grave about a foot deep, being unable toget lower on account of the frozen earth. The body was placed oil its back at the husband's and he then •stepped into the grave, and cut all the stitchesof the hammock; although without throwing it open, e seeming to iinply that the dead should be left un- confined. I laid a woman's knife by the side ot the body and we filled up the gave, over which we also piled a quantity of heavy stones which no animal could remove. When all was done and we returned to the ship, the man lingered a few minutes behind us and repeated two or three sen- tences, as if addressing himself to his departed wife; he then silently followed. We found Shega qiiite composed and attending her little sister, between whose eve-brows she had made a spot with soot, which í learned was because being un- weaned it must certainly die. During the night my little charge called on its mother without intermis- sion, vet the father slept as soundly until morning as if nothing had happened. -iA I who saw my patient on the morning of the 25th gave me great hopes she cauldswallow easilv ati-d was even strong enough to turn or sit upright without assistance, and In the forenoon slept very soundly. At noon the sister of the de- ceased, Ootooguak, with her husband and son, came to visit me. She had first gone to the r ury, and was laughing on deck, and at her own lequest was taken below, not caring to hurry herself to come to the house of mourning. Even \vhen she came to the Hecla, she was in high spirits, laugh- ing and capering on deck as if nothing had hap- pened, but on being shown to my cabin, when) Shega having heard of her arrival was sitting crying in readiness, she began with her niece to howl most woefully. I however put a stop to this ceremony, for such it certainly was, under the plea of its disturbing the child. The arrival of a pot of smoking walrus-flesh soon brought smiles on all faces but that, of Takkeelikkeeta, who re- fused food and sat sighing deeply the others ate, chatted, and laughed, as it'nothing but eating was worth thinking of. Dinner being over, I received thanks for burying the woman in such a way that neither woives, dogs, nor foxes could dig her up and eat her," for all were full of the story of Keimooseuk, and even begged some of our officers to go to Igloolik and shoot the offending- dogs. A young woman named Ablik, sister to Ooyara, was induced, after much entreaty and a very large present of beads, to offer breast to the sick child, but the poor little creature pushed it angrily away. Another woman was asked to do thesaiue but although hor child was half weaned she flatly refused. The tttin t of my little one seeming anxious ,g to remain, and Shega being now alone, I invited her to stop the night. In the evening the child took meat and jelly and sat up to hold itself, but it soon after resumed its melancholy cry for its mother. At night my party had retired to sleep, yet 1 heard loud sighing occasionally, and on lifting the curtain I saw Takkeelikeeta standing and looking Mournfully at his child. I endeavour- ed to compose him and he promised to go to bed but hearing him again sighing in & few minutes I ifent and found the poor infant was dead, and that its ratherhatl been some timeltWllrfJ of it. He now told me that it had seen its mother the last time it called on ber, nd that she had beckoned it to Khil-la, (H^sven.) He said it was good" that the child Wail gone, that nn children out-lived their mothers, and that the black spot which Shego had frequently renewed was quite suffici- to insure the death of the infant."

OXALIC ACID TAKEN FOR SALTS.

ICASE OF NOSTALGIA-OR PINING…

J POETRY.:

ANGLESEY— MOS MAMGYMRY.

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ALGIERS.