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[[margin]]
1860
Tuesday
Sept. 4
[[/margin]]
Kan-ni-in, one of the wives of Mgan, worked with a will! A capital pilot & an excellent [[underlined]] sea-woman [[/underlined]],she knew well that some desperate work had [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] to be done [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]]  
to cross the channel where we had undertaken to,
^[[& that too]] under the inanpropitious[[guess]]  circumstances surrounding us!
And then there was a young ^[[Esquimaux]] mother who had along with her her pik-a-nin-ni (infant) that seemed the image of her face, ^[[same [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] in color]] as indeed it was the idol of her heart. Crying out, this infant was superlatively troublesome, so much so that the mother had to take it out of the universal pocket (the ^[[woman's]] hood at the back of the neck & shoulders) & administer to it certain care which finally quieted the little sq^[[u]]aller. Among all my observations, I have seen no child of the natives here North so restless, [[underlined]] so dare-devil-like [[/underlined]] as this! I have seen it almost every day, for 5 weeks, & such are my conclusions. Is this because of the Anglo Saxon blood tingling in its veins? Far be it understood this is ^[[the]] [[strikethrough]] wht [[/strikethrough]] white child with American features! A beautiful babe, but an [[underlined]] aweful crop [[/underlined]] one! [[strikethrough]] it is! [[/strikethrough]] Nevertheless, the dark ^[[but finely]] featured mother loves it as devotedly as a mother can. For it - for its preservation - that mother now ^[[seemed to]] pull at the oar six men could have have done more, only a life as dear to them had been their incentive! There in the bow of the boat lay the little ^[[cherry cheeked]] innocent, sleeping as quietly as this a celestial spirit was hovering over it. Its dreams might ^[[have]] been of angels. As for me, we  had [[strikethrough]] ste[[?]] [[/strikethrough]] ^[[the]] realities of life thick around! Now & then a wave would mount up & top its white-cap clear [[strikethrough]] over over [[/strikethrough]] our heads. For full 30 minutes, we tugged to hold our own! Not one yard did we seem to gain. Not 50 fathoms off were the waves dashing in surf! But desperate work for desperate cases! At last we gained a point, where I headed the boat to the lee side of an island, thus saving us [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] from a continuance of the desperate work, & the deep anxiety I had for the fate of my crew. My arms, hands & wrists feel of if they had been pulled upon with the power of a ten horse engine. I shall probably see many a nurse time, ere I'm through with my stay in the North! Thank God for His continued Blessings!
About noon, we saw the towing boats issuing from among the islands lying southward from the "George Henry". At last they came to a dead half so for us advancing themselves on the whale. The tide was falling & then