we
were destined to pass five days as pleasant as the five at Webeck had
been tedious.

[Hopedale] The harbor at Hopedale is the best one we visited on the
coast. The twelve miles of sound, fringed and studded with islands,
completely broke the undertow which had kept our vessel constantly
rolling, when at anchor, in every harbor except those up Hamilton
Inlet and Lake Melville.

About two miles south of us a vast, unexplored bay ran for a long
distance inland, while to the north, looking from Flagstaff Peak, we
could see Cape Harrigan and the shoals about it, the numberless
inlets, coves and bays which fill in the sixty miles to Nain. We were
very much disappointed at our inability to go north to that place, but
before our start from the United States Hopedale had been named as the
point with which we would be content if ice and winds allowed us to
reach it, and that point proved the northern limit of our voyage.

About half a mile across the point of land on which the missionary
settlement lies, is the site of the pre-historic village of "Avatoke,"
which means "may-we-have-seals." It consisted of three approximately
circular houses, in line parallel with the shore, at the head of a
slight cove, backed to the west by a high hill, and with a fine beach
in front, now raised considerably from the sea level. Along the front
of the row of houses were immense shell heaps, from which we dug
ivory, that is, walrus teeth; carvings, stone lamps, spear heads,
portions of kyaks, whips, komatiks, as the sleds are called, etc.,
etc., and bones innumerable of all the varieties of birds, fish and
game on which the early Eskimo dined; as well as remnants of all the
implements which Eskimos used in the household generations ago, and
which can nearly all now be recognized by the almost identically
shaped and made implements in the houses of Eskimos there in Hopedale,
so little do they change in the course of centuries. The village has
been completely deserted for over one hundred years, and was in its
prime centuries before that, so the tales of its greatness are only
dim Eskimo traditions.

The houses were found to average about thirty-five feet across on the
inside; are separated by a space of about fifteen feet, and each had a
long, narrow doorway or entrance, being almost exactly in line. The
walls are about fifteen feet thick and now about five feet high, of
earth, with the gravel beach for a foundation. The inside of the wall