ormed of pieces of drift wood picked up along the
shore, afforded the means of effecting the hazardous enterprise.

On questioning them what was their object in risking their lives in
so extraordinary an adventure, they replied, that they wanted wood to
make canoes, and visit the Esquimaux on the south side of the Strait.

"And what if you had been overtaken by a storm?" said I.

"We should all have gone to the bottom," was the cool reply.

In fact, they had made a very narrow escape, a storm having come on
just as they landed on the first island.

The fact of these people having crossed Hudson's Strait on so rude
and frail a conveyance, strongly corroborates, I think, the opinion
that America was originally peopled from Asia. The Asiatic side of
Behring's Strait affording timber sufficiently large for the purpose
of building boats or canoes, there seems nothing improbable in
supposing that, when once in possession of that wonderful and useful
invention--a boat, they might be induced, even by curiosity--that
powerful stimulus to adventure--to visit the nearest island, and from
thence proceed to the continent of America; and finding it, perhaps,
possessed of superior advantages to the shores they had left, settle
there. My voyageur was evidently induced as much by curiosity as by
the desire of procuring a canoe, to visit the south side of Hudson's
Strait, where the passage is as wide as between the island in
Behring's Strait and the two continents.

At an early period of the winter I was gratified by the arrival of
despatches from the civilized world. The packet was found by the
Indians at Esquimaux Bay, whither I had sent them, and forwarded to me
by Mr. Erlandson's two men. By his letters I was grieved to learn that
starvation stared him in the face; the fishing, that promised so well
when I passed, having entirely failed, and no deer were to be found.
He wrote me, however, that he would maintain his post while a piece of
parchment remained to gnaw!

The Governor's letters conveyed the thanks of the Governor and
Committee for my "laudable exertions;" while his Excellency intimated,
in language not to be misunderstood, that my promotion depended on my
successful management of the affairs of Ungava, "which he regretted to
find were still in an unpromising state."

What effect this announcement had on my feelings need not be
mentioned--after a painful servitude of eighteen years thus to
be compelled to make renew