of my beloved wife, whose untimely death left me in a more wretched
condition than words can express. This was truly an eventful year for
me;--within that space I became a husband, a father, and a widower;--I
traversed the continent of America, performing a voyage of some
1,500 miles by sea, and a journey by land of fully 1,200 miles, on
snow-shoes.

As soon as the navigation became practicable (June 18), Mr. Erlandson
set off for the interior, with his outfit, in three small canoes, and
after much toil reached his destination on the 10th of July. On the
return of the men who had assisted in the transport, I fitted out
an expedition to explore the coast to the westward, with the view of
ascertaining the capabilities of that quarter, for the extension of
the business. The party was absent about a month; and their report
was entirely unfavourable to the project of carrying our "ameliorating
system" so far. The navigation of the coast is exceedingly dangerous,
from the continual presence of ice, and the extraordinary force of the
currents. While the coast proved so inaccessible, the interior of the
country wears a still more dreary and sterile aspect; not a tree, nor
shrub, nor plant of any land, is to be seen, save the lichens that
cover the rocks, and a few willows. The native Esquimaux, whom our
people had seen, evinced the same amicable disposition by which their
whole race is distinguished. They received our people with open arms,
and some of the young damsels seemed disposed to cultivate a closer
intimacy with them than their ideas of propriety, or at least their
olfactory nerves, would sanction. The effluvia that proceeds from
their persons in the summer season is quite insufferable; it is as if
you applied your nose to a cask of rancid oil.

In the course of the summer, several Esquimaux arrived from the