The anchor soon swung at the bow of the 'George and Mary', and her
yards were squared for Marble Island, where we were to take on board
water for the homeward-bound voyage. Our Inuit friends shouted their
last farewells, and we were actually "en route" home.
Fortunate was it for us that there was a kind-hearted whaler in
Hudson's Bay, or we would have been compelled to spend at least one
more winter in the polar regions. But Captain Baker treated us with the
greatest consideration not only while we were his guests during the
spring at Marble Island, but when we returned to Depot Island he gave
us such provisions from his stores as he could spare, and without this
assistance we would have suffered considerably, for twice again after
our return the natives were entirely without food for several days. But
instead of our starving with them, we were enabled to save these poor
people much suffering by sharing our slender stock with them. We left
the ship in her winter quarters on the 3d of May, and on the 11th
pitched our tent on the highest rock on Depot Island. The natives soon
came from their igloos on the ice about a mile away, and gathered
around us. Whenever they killed a walrus or a seal they brought us some
of the meat, for which we paid them, as usual, with powder, caps, or
lead. But from the 22d of May, when they killed two walrus, until the
7th of June, when the ship hove in sight from her winter quarters, the
weather had been such that they had killed nothing but two small seals.
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