them. This consists chiefly in offal, old skins, entrails, such parts of
whale-flesh as are unfit for other use, rotten whale-fins, &c.; and if
they are not provided with this kind of dog's meat, they leave them to
go and seek dead fish or muscles upon the beach.

When pinched with hunger they will swallow almost anything, and on a
journey it is necessary to secure the harness within the snow-house
over night, lest, by devouring it, they should render it impossible
to proceed in the morning. When the travellers arrive at their night
quarters, and the dogs are unharnessed, they are left to burrow on the
snow, where they please, and in the morning are sure to come at their
driver's call, when they receive some food. Their strength and speed;
even with a hungry stomach, is astonishing. In fastening them to the
sledge, care is taken not to let them go abreast. They are tied by
separate thongs, of unequal lengths, to a horizontal bar in the fore
part of the sledge; an old knowing one leads the way, running ten or
twenty paces ahead, directed by the driver's whip, which is of great
length, and can be well managed only by an Esquimaux. The other dogs
follow like a flock of sheep. If one of them receives a lash, he
generally bites his neighbour, and the bite goes round.

To return to our travellers. The sledge contained five men, one woman,
and a child. All were in good spirits, and appearances being much in
their favour, they hoped to reach Okkak in safety in two or three days.
The track over the frozen sea was in the best possible order, and they
went with ease at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. After they
had passed the islands in the bay of Nain, they kept at a considerable
distance from the coast, both to gain the smoothest part of the ice, and
to weather the high rocky promontory of Kiglapeit. About eight o'clock
they met a sledge with Esquimaux turning in from the sea. After the