"I do not forget that five years ago you assured me of your love; and only a few days since you bound this thong on my arm as a token of your affection, and by this you have declared that you are willing to hear the word of the sufferings and death of Jesus." When the others heard this, they all cried out, "We also are willing to hear." The missionary then mentioned some particulars of the history of the life and sufferings of the Saviour, and asked if they would wish, as the Greenlanders did, to hear something of Jesus everyday? "Yes! yes!" they all replied. "Then," said Drachart, "if that be the case, we will look out for a piece of land in Esquimaux Bay, where we may next year build a house."
Although these good men had received the extensive grant we have mentioned from His Majesty of England of the Esquimaux country, they did not consider that that gave them any right to take possession without the consent of the inhabitants, or without giving them an equivalent, notwithstanding the settlement was intended solely for their advantage, and was to communicate to them what was of infinitely more value than millions of acres in the finest country of the world, instead of a patch of barren ground on the bleak and inhospitable coast of Labrador. When they mentioned that they meant to "buy" the land, the whole crowd, who perfectly understood the term, cried out, "Good! good! pay us, and take as much land as you please!" Drachart said, "It is not enough that you be paid for your high rocky mountain; you may perhaps say in your hearts, when these people come here, we will kill them, and take their boats and all their valuable articles." "No! no!" they exclaimed, "we will never kill any more, or steal any more; we are brethren!" "That gladdens my heart," said Drachart; "but how shall we buy the land? You have no great chief, and every one of you will be lord of his land. We will do this: we will give each of you what will be more useful to you in your fishing than the land you may give us." "Pay us," they repeated, "pay us, and take as much land as you please." Drachart and the other brethren then going from tent to tent, divided among the men, women, and children, all kinds of tools and fishing tackle, which having done, he produced a written agreement to which all their names were attached, and telling them its import, required each to put a mark before his name with his own hand, that it might be a perpetual memorial of their having sold the land. When they had done so, he again shewed each his name with his mark, adding, "In time to come, when yourselves or your children shall learn to read and write, as the Greenlanders have done, they will be able to read these names, and they will remember what they have just now seen and heard." Drachart next informed them, that when they should return to Esquimaux Bay, after the rein-deer hunt, they would see four great stones erected with figures on them, which were called letters, and these would mark out the boundaries of the land which had been bought from them. The Esquimaux, of whom about one hundred were present, then gave the brethren their hands, and solemnly promised to abide by their agreement "as long as the sun shone."
After this sacred transaction the brethren, along with Mikak and her family, returned to the ship, which set sail the same day for Esquimaux Bay. On the dangerous passage, Mikak and her husband were of essential service in directing their course among rocks and islands, and likewise in trading with the Esquimaux they met with on their way, and inducing them to receive the brethren favourably, and attend to their instructions. Notwithstanding, however, the uniform expressions of love with which the savages everywhere hailed them, the missionaries found it necessary always to be upon their guard, and use the utmost circumspection in their intercourse with their new friends, especially on shipboard, where they behaved with a rude intrusion, often extremely troublesome, and not always without showing marks of their natural propensity to thieving; they therefore prohibited more than five from coming on board at one time to trade, and that only during the day; and informed them that if any were found in the ship during the night, they should be treated as thieves; and, to fix the time allowed for trading more exactly, a cannon was fired at six o'clock in the morning, and another at the same time in the evening. Finding that his regulations, however, were not so strictly observed as he could wish, and the natives becoming rather troublesome, Captain Mugford, while lying off the Island Amitok, deemed it necessary to show them that he possessed the power of punishing their misdeeds if he chose to employ it. He fired several shot from his great guns over their heads against a high barren rock at no great distance. When the broken pieces of the rock rolled down threateningly towards them, they raised a mournful howl in their tents, as if they were about to be destroyed; but they afterwards behaved more orderly, and not with the savage wildness they had done before, yet the missionaries were always obliged to act with firmness and decision, in order to prevent all approaches to any transgression that it might have been necessary to punish, or that might have exposed any of the men to danger.
During the voyage, Drachart held a meeting morning and evening, in the cabin, with the young Esquimaux, who seemed to take great pleasure in it, and were highly attentive. Some of their expressions were remarkable. "They wished they had such a desire for the Saviour as a child has for its parents"—"or a man to hunt the rein-deer, and obtain his prey."—"They would not cease to think of Jesus' sufferings and death, but would remember that merciful and generous Saviour who had died from love to them, and learn to know and love him." In the evening of the last day of July they cast anchor in the southernmost corner of Esquimaux Bay, and on the following day entered the harbour of Nanangoak, in which lay fourteen European and two women's boats, and on shore fourty-seven tents were pitched. Here Mikak and her husband had wished to rejoin their countrymen. Before they left the ship Drachart reminded them of what he had taught them, and recommended to them every morning when they rose, and every evening before they went to sleep, to think on the Saviour and his sufferings; and exhorted them, when any wicked thoughts should arise in their minds—theft, adultery, or murder, or any other bad thing they had heard from their youth up from the Angekoks their teachers—that they should pray to him that he would take them away, adding, "if you thus turn to Jesus and diligently seek to him, then you will no more belong to the heathen, but to the Saviour, who will receive you as his own, and write your names among the faithful." Jans Haven accompanied them to their friends, who rejoiced to receive them in safety, and among them Jans found his old acquaintance Seguilliak. Next day Drachart and Jensen went on shore, when they were immediately surrounded by a great crowd, who took the missionaries under the arm, and shook them by the hands, and then conducted them from tent to tent, where they proclaimed to them the unsearchable riches of Christ. Mikak invited them into her large tent, and begged they might hold a meeting in it. Soon upwards of seven hundred Esquimaux were collected within and around it, to whom Drachart, for the first time, preached the gospel, and was heard here, as elsewhere, with the utmost apparent attention. When he had finished, Mikak and her husband began to testify, in their own simple manner, how the Lord in heaven had become man, and died for their sins. Supposing that this alluded to their own murders, some of their countrymen appeared startled, and cried out, "Ah! that is true, we are sinners, and old murderers; but we will never more carry concealed knives, either under our arms or under our clothes; and we shall never have bows and arrows hid in our kaiaks, because the Lord in heaven has said, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. If we kill Europeans, as we did three years ago, then we deserve that they should kill us and our countrymen." But they seemed likewise alarmed lest the boats they had then taken should be demanded back; but Mikak and her husband explained that the Europeans did not come to desire them to give back the boats, but that certainly if they did so any more they would be punished. "That is good!" they replied "we believe your words, Mikak; and shall also love the great and powerful chief you saw in London, and his people, and will trade honourably with them;" and renewed their protestations of affection for the missionaries, telling them, "Now we are brethren." Drachart seized the opportunity of explaining what he meant by brethren:—"Ye have heard that many of the Greenlanders are our brethren; now you must learn rightly to understand why we call one another brethren. Hear what the reason is,—our hearts and the Greenlanders are fast bound together by the love of Jesus our Saviour, who died on the cross for our sins, therefore do we call the Greenlanders, and all who are united in the death of Jesus, our brethren. If you will now be converted to Jesus, then shall you be such brethren as the Greenlanders are." At a subsequent meeting, the missionaries informed them that they were desirous of finding a proper place on which to build a house, as it was their intention to return next year and settle among them, and requested their opinion as to where would be the best spot. They told them there were many good places on the continent which they might examine and choose for themselves; or if they would
