234 THE FUR COUNTRY. thousands of years before, and would sooner or later be torn away in some convulsion of nature. Hence tbe surprise at finding the factory founded by Hobson at the foot of the cape. But with the unfortunate reserve characteristic of their race, and perhaps also under the influence of that enmity which all natives feel for those who settle in their country, they said nothing to the Lieutenant, whose fort was already finished. Kalumah knew nothing of this tradition, which after all rested on no trustworthy evidence, and probably belonged to the many northern legends relating to the creation. This was how it was that the colonists of Fort Hope were not warned of the danger they ran in settling on such a spot. Had a word in season been spoken to Hobson he would certainly have gone farther in search of some firmer foundation for his fort than this soil, certain peculiarities of which he had noticed at the first. When Kalumah had made quite sure that all trace of Cape Bathurst was gone, she explored the coast as far as the further side of Washburn Bay, but without finding any sign of those she sought, and at last there was nothing left for her to do but to return to the fisheries of Russian America. She and her brother-in-law left Walruses' Bay at the end of June, and following the coast got back to New Georgia towards the end of July^ after an absolutely fruitless journey. Kalumah now gave up all hope of again seeing Mrs Barnett and the other colonists of Fort Hope. She concluded that they had all been swallowed up by the ocean long ago. At this part of her tale the young Esquimaux looked at Mrs Barnett with eyes full of tears, and pressed her hand afifectionaly, and then she murmured her thanks to God for her own preservation through the means of her friend. Kalumah on her return home resumed her customary occupa- tions, and worked with the rest of her tribe at the fisheries near Icy Cape, a ppint a little above the seventieth parallel, and more than six hundred miles from Cape Bathurst. Nothing worthy of note happened during the first half of the month of April ; but towards the end the storm began which had caused Hobson so much uneasiness, and which had apparently extended its ravages over the whole of the Arctic Ocean and beyond Behring Strait. It was equally violent at Icy Cape and on Victoria Island, and, as the Lieutenant ascertained in taking his
