In the course of the evening our conversation happened to turn on the Indians, a people whom none of these Esquimaux had ever seen; but with whose ferocity and decided hostility to their own nation they seemed to be well acquainted. They described, also, their peculiar manner of paddling their canoes, and were aware that they made use of the kind of show-shoes which we showed them. When I related to them, as well as I was able, the massacre of the Esquimaux recorded by Hearne, and gave them to understand that the Indians spared neither age nor sex, it seemed to chill them with horror, and I was almost sorry that I had told them the story.
_April 11._--We were now glad to begin making some show of re-equipping the ships for sea; for though this was a business that might, if necessary, have been very well accomplished in two or three weeks, it was better to employ the men in occupations having an evident and determinate object, than in those less obviously useful ones to which it was necessary to resort during the winter. We therefore brought down some of the boats to the ships to repair, put up the forge on the ice, and built a snow house over it, and set about various other jobs, which made the neighbourhood of the ships assume a busy and bustling appearance.
I had to-day a visit from Okotook and Iligliuk, who, with their son, came in upon their sledge from the distant huts. Being desirous of entertaining them well, in return for their late hospitality, we provided abundance to eat, and showed them everything about the ship that we thought likely to amuse them. Of all the wonders they had ever seen on board, there was nothing which seemed to impress them so strongly with a sense of our superiority as the forge, and the work which the armourer performed with it. The welding of two pieces of iron especially excited their admiration, and I never saw Iligliuk express so much astonishment at anything before. Even in this her superior good sense was observable, for it was evident that the utility of what she saw going on was what forced itself upon her mind; and she watched every stroke of the hammer and each blast of the bellows with extreme eagerness, while numbers of the other Esquimaux looked stupidly on, without expressing the smallest curiosity or interest in the operation, except by desiring to have some spear-heads fashioned out by this means. Iligliuk was always very much entertained also by pictures having any relation to the Esquimaux in other parts, and derived great entertainment from a description of any difference in their clothes, utensils, or weapons. Of these the sail in an Esquimaux boat seemed particularly to attract her notice; but, in general, she had no inclination to admit the inferiority of her, own tribe to any other. She was always extremely inquisitive about her own sex, whether _Innuees_[*] or _Kabloonas_, listening with eager attention to any account of their dress or occupations, and in common, I believe, with all the rest of the Esquimaux, wondered how we came to travel to their country without our wives. The assurance that many among us were not married, they received with evident incredulity.