CHAPTER VII.

Some Remarks upon the Loss of the Fury--And on the Natural History, &c., of the Coast of North Somerset.--Arrive at Neill's Harbour.--Death of John Page.--Leave Neill's Harbour.--Recross the Ice in Baffin's Bay.--Heavy Gales.--Temperature of the Sea.--Arrival in England.

The accident which had now befallen the Fury, and which, when its fatal result was finally ascertained, at once put an end to every prospect of success in the main object of this voyage, is not an event which will excite surprise in the minds of those who are either personally acquainted with the true nature of this precarious navigation, or have had patience to follow me through the tedious and monotonous detail of our operations during seven successive summers. To any persons thus qualified to judge, it will be plain that an occurrence of this nature was at all times rather to be expected than otherwise, and that the only real cause for wonder has been our long exemption from such a catastrophe.

The summer of 1825 was, beyond all doubt, the warmest and most favourable we had experienced since that of 1818. Not more than two or three days occurred, during the months of July and August, in which that heavy fall of snow took place which so commonly converts the aspect of nature in these regions, in a single hour, from the cheerfulness of summer into the dreariness of winter. Indeed, we experienced very little either of snow, rain, or fog: vegetation, wherever the soil allowed any to spring up, was extremely luxuriant and forward; a great deal of the old snow, which had laid on the ground during the last season, was rapidly dissolving even early in August; and every appearance of nature exhibited a striking contrast with the last summer, while it seemed evidently to furnish an extraordinary compensation for its rigour and inclemency.

We have scarcely ever visited a coast on which so little of animal life occurs. For days together, only one or two seals, a single seahorse, and now and then a flock of ducks, were seen. I have already mentioned, however, as an exception to this scarcity of animals, the numberless kittiwakes which were flying about the remarkable spout of water; and we were one day visited, at the place where the Fury was left, by hundreds of white whales, sporting about in the shoal water close to the beach. No black whales were ever seen on this coast. Two reindeer were observed by the gentlemen who extended their walks inland; but this was the only summer in which we did not procure a single pound of venison. Indeed, the whole of our supplies obtained in this way during the voyage, including fish, flesh, and fowl, did not exceed twenty pounds per man.

The weather continuing nearly calm during the 26th, and the ice keeping at the distance of several miles from the land, gave us an opportunity of clearing decks, and stowing the things belonging to the Fury's crew more comfortably for their accommodation and convenience. I now felt more sensibly than ever the necessity I have elsewhere pointed out, of both ships employed on this kind of service being of the same size, equipped in the same manner, and alike efficient in every respect. The way in which we had been able to apply every article for assisting to heave the Fury down, without the smallest doubt or selection as to size or strength, proved an excellent practical example of the value of being thus able, at a moment's warning, to double the means and resources of either ship in case of necessity. In fact, by this arrangement, nothing but a harbour to secure the ships was wanted to complete the whole operation in as effectual a manner as in a dockyard; for not a shore, or outrigger, or any other precaution was omitted, that is usually attended to on such occasions, and all as good and effective as could anywhere have been desired. The advantages were now scarcely conspicuous in the accommodation of the officers and men, who in a short time became little less comfortable than in their own ship; whereas, in a smaller vessel, comfort, to say nothing of health, would have been quite out of the question.

A breeze from the northward freshening up strong on the 27th, we stretched over to the eastern shore of Prince Regent's Inlet, and this with scarcely any obstruction from ice. We could, indeed, scarcely believe this the same sea which, but a few weeks before, had been loaded with one impenetrable body of closely-packed ice from shore to shore, and as far as the eye could discern to the southward. Having a great deal of heavy work to do in the restowage of the holds, which could not well be accomplished at sea, and also a quantity of water to fill for our increased complement, I determined to take advantage of our fetching the entrance of Neill's Harbour to put in here, in order to prepare the ship completely for crossing the Atlantic. I was desirous also of ascertaining the depth of water in this place, which was wanting to complete Lieutenant Sherer's survey of it. Finding the harbour an extremely convenient one for our purpose, we worked the ship in, and at four P.M. anchored in thirteen fathoms, but afterward shifted out to eighteen, on a bottom of soft mud. Almost at the moment of our dropping the anchor, John Page, seaman of the Fury, departed this life: he had for several months been affected with a scrofulous disorder, and had been gradually sinking for some time.

The funeral of the deceased being performed, we immediately commenced landing the casks and filling water; but, notwithstanding the large streams which, a short time before, had been running into the harbour, we could hardly obtain enough for our purpose by sinking a cask with holes in it. This work, together with the entire restowage of all the holds, occupied the whole of the 29th and 30th, during which time Lieutenant Sherer was employed in completing the survey of the harbour, more especially the soundings, which the presence of the ice had before prevented. These arrangements had just been completed, when the northeasterly wind died away, and was succeeded, on the morning of the 31st, by a light air from the northwest. As soon as we had sent to ascertain that the sea was clear of ice on the outside, and that the breeze which blew in the harbour was the true one, we weighed and stood out, and before noon had cleared the shoals at the entrance.

Finding the wind at northwest in Prince Regent's Inlet, we were barely able to lie along the eastern coast. As the breeze freshened in the course of the day, a great deal of loose ice, in extensive streams and patches, came drifting down from the Leopold Islands, occasioning us some trouble in picking our way to the northward. By carrying a press of sail, however, we were enabled, towards night, to get into clearer water, and by four A.M. on the 1st of September, having beat to windward of a compact body of ice which had fixed itself on the lee shore about Cape York, we soon came into a perfectly open sea in Barrow's Strait, and were enabled to bear away to the eastward. We now considered ourselves fortunate in having got out of harbour when we did, as the ice would probably have filled up every inlet on that shore in a few hours after we left it.

Being again favoured with a fair wind, we now stretched to the eastward, still in an open sea; and our curiosity was particularly excited to see the present situation of the ice in the middle of Baffin's Bay, and to compare it with that in 1824. This comparison we were enabled to make the more fairly, because the season at which we might expect to come to it coincided, within three or four days, with that in which we left it the preceding year. The temperature of the sea-water now increased to 38° soon after leaving the Sound, where it had generally been from 33° to 35°, whereas at the same season last year it rose no higher than 32° anywhere in the neighbourhood, and remained even so high as that only for a very short time. This circumstance seemed to indicate the total absence of ice from those parts of the sea which had last autumn been wholly covered by it. Accordingly, on the 5th, being thirty miles beyond the spot in which we had before contended with numerous difficulties from ice, not a piece was to be seen, except one or two solitary bergs; and it was not till the following day, in latitude 72° 45', and longitude 64° 44', or about one hundred and twenty-seven miles to the eastward of where we made our escape on the 9th of September, 1824, that we fell in with a body of ice so loose and open as scarcely to oblige us to alter our course for it. At three P.M. on the 7th, being in latitude 72° 30', and longitude 60° 05', and having, in the course of eighty miles that we had run through it, only made a single tack, we came to the margin of the ice, and got into an open sea on its eastern side. In the whole course of this distance, the ice was so much spread that it would not, if at all closely "packed," have occupied one third of the same space. There were at this time thirty-nine bergs in sight, and some of them certainly not less than two hundred feet in height.

On the 8th, being in latitude 71° 55', longitude 60° 30', and close to the margin of the ice, we fell in with the Alfred, Ellison, and Elizabeth, whalers, of Hull, all running to the northward, even at this season, to look for whales.

As the whaling-ships were not homeward bound, having as yet had indifferent success in the fishery, I did not consider it necessary to send despatches by them. After an hour's communication with them, and obtaining such information of a public nature as could not fail to be highly interesting to us, we made sail to the southward; while we observed them lying to for some time after, probably to consult respecting the unwelcome information with which we had furnished them as to the whales, not one of which, by some extraordinary chance, we had seen since leaving Neill's Harbour. As this circumstance was entirely new to us, it seems not unlikely that the whales are already beginning to shift their ground, in consequence of the increased attacks which have been made upon them of late years in that neighbourhood.

On the 10th we had an easterly wind, which, gradually freshening to a gale, drew up the Strait from the southward, and blew strong for twentyfour hours from that quarter. The wind moderated on the 11th, but on the following day another gale came on, which for nine or ten hours blew in most tremendous gusts from the same quarter, and raised a heavy sea. We happily came near no ice during the night, or it would scarcely have been possible to keep the ship clear of it. It abated after daylight on the 13th, but continued to blow an ordinary gale for twelve hours longer.

On the 17th, at noon, we had passed to the southward of the Arctic Circle, and from this latitude to that of about 58°, we had favourable winds and weather; but we remarked on this, as on several other occasions during this season, that a northerly breeze, contrary to ordinary observation, brought more moisture with it than any other. In the course of this run, we also observed more driftwood than we had ever done before, which I thought might possibly be owing to the very great prevalence of easterly winds this season driving it farther from the coast of Greenland than usual.

On, the morning of the 24th, notwithstanding the continuance of a favourable breeze, we met, in the latitude of 58-1/2°, so heavy a swell from the northeastward as to make the ship labour violently for four-and-twenty hours. On the morning of the 25th we had again an easterly wind, which in a few hours reduced us to the close-reefed topsails and reefed courses. At eight P.M. it freshened to a gale, which brought us under the main-topsail and storm-staysails, and at seven the following morning it increased to a gale of such violence from N.E.b.N. as does not very often occur at sea in these latitudes. The gusts were at times so tremendous as to set the sea quite in a foam, and threatened to tear the sails out of the bolt-ropes. The wind gradually drew to the westward, with dry weather, after the gale began to abate, and at six A.M. we were enabled to bear up and run to the eastward with a strong gale at N.W.

The indications of the barometer previous to and during this gale deserve to be noticed, because it is only about Cape Farewell that, in coming from the northward down Davis's Strait, this instrument begins to speak a language which has ever been intelligible to us _as a weather glass_. On the 24th, notwithstanding the change of wind from north to east, the mercury rose from 29.51 on that morning, to 29.72 at three A.M. the following day, but fell to 26.39 by nine P.M. with the strong but not violent breeze then blowing. After this it continued to descend very gradually, and had reached 28.84, which was its minimum, at three P.M. on the 26th, after which it continued to blow tremendously hard for eleven or twelve hours, the mercury uniformly, though slowly, ascending to 28.95 during that interval, and afterward to 29.73 as the weather became moderate and fine in the course of the täähree following days.

After this gale the atmosphere seemed to be quite cleared, and we enjoyed a week of such remarkably fine weather as seldom occurs at this season of the year. We had then a succession of strong southerly winds, but we were enabled to continue our progress to the eastward, so as to make Mould Head, towards the northwest end of the Orkney Islands, at daylight on the 10th of October.

After rounding the north end of the Orkneys on the 10th of October, we were, on the 12th, met by a strong southerly wind when off Peterhead. I therefore immediately landed (for the second time) at that place, and, setting off without delay for London, arrived at the Admiralty on the 16th.

The Hecla arrived at Sheerness on the 20th of October, where she was detained for a few days for the purpose of Captain Hoppner, his officers, and ship's company being put upon their trial (according to the customary and indispensable rule in such cases) for the loss of the Fury--when, it is scarcely necessary to add, they received an honourable acquittal. The Hecla then proceeded to Woolwich, and was paid off on the 21st of November.

ACCOUNT

OF

THE ESQUIMAUX

OF

MELVILLE PENINSULA AND THE ADJOINING ISLANDS: MORE PARTICULARLY OF WINTER ISLAND AND IGLOOLIK.

ACCOUNT OF THE ESQUIMAUX.

The number of individuals composing the tribe of Esquimaux assembled at Winter Island and Igloolik was two hundred and nineteen, of whom sixty-nine were men, seventy-seven women, and seventy-three children. Two or three of the men, from their appearance and infirmities, as well as from the age of their children, must have been near seventy; the rest were from twenty to about fifty. The majority of the women were comparatively young, or from twenty to five-and-thirty, and three or four only seemed to have reached sixty. Of the children, about one third were under four years old, and the rest from that age upward to sixteen or seventeen. Out of one hundred and fifty-five individuals who passed the winter at Igloolik, we knew of eighteen deaths and of only nine births.

The stature of these people is much below that of Europeans in general. One man, who was unusually tall, measured five feet ten inches, and the shortest was only four feet eleven inches and a half. Of twenty individuals of each sex measured at Igloolik, the range was:

Men.--From 5 ft. 10 in. to 4 ft. 11 in. The average height, 5 ft. 5-1/3 in. Women.--From 5 ft. 3-1/2 in. to 4 ft. 8-3/4 in. The average height, 5 ft. 0-1/2 in.

The women, however, generally appear shorter than they really are, both from the unwieldy nature of their clothes, and from a habit, which they early acquire, of stooping considerably forward in order to balance the weight of the child they carry in their hood.

In their figure they are rather well formed than otherwise. Their knees are indeed rather large in proportion, but their legs are straight, and the hands and feet, in both sexes, remarkably small. The younger individuals were all plump, but none of them corpulent; the women inclined the most to this last extreme, and their flesh was, even in the youngest individuals, quite loose and without firmness.

Their faces are generally round and full, eyes small and black, nose also small and sunk far in between the cheek bones, but not much flattened. It is remarkable, that one man T=e-~a, his brother, his wife, and two daughters, had good Roman noses, and one of the latter was an extremely pretty young woman. Their teeth are short, thick, and close, generally regular, and in the young persons almost always white. The elderly women were still well furnished in this way, though their teeth were usually a good deal worn down, probably by the habit of chewing the sealskins for making boots.

In the young of both sexes the complexion is clear and transparent, and the skin smooth. The colour of the latter, when divested of oil and dirt, is scarcely a shade darker than that of a deep brunette, so that the blood is plainly perceptible when it mounts into the cheeks. In the old folks, whose faces were much wrinkled, the skin appears of a much more dingy hue, the dirt being less easily, and, therefore, less frequently dislodged from them.

By whatever peculiarities, however, they may in general be distinguished, they are by no means an ill-looking people; and there were among them three or four grown-up persons of each sex, who, when divested of their skin-dresses, their tattooing, and, above all, of their dirt, might have been considered pleasing-looking, if not handsome, people in any town in Europe. This remark applies more generally to the children also; several of whom had complexions nearly as fair as that of Europeans, and whose little bright black eyes gave a fine expression to their countenances.

The hair, both of males and females, is black, glossy, and straight. The men usually wear it rather long, and allow it to hang about their heads in a loose and slovenly manner. The women pride themselves extremely on the length and thickness of their hair; and it was not without reluctance on their part, and the same on that of their husbands, that they were induced to dispose of any of it. Some of the women's hair was tolerably fine, but would not, in this respect, bear a comparison with, that of an Englishwoman. In both sexes it is full of vermin, which they are in the constant habit of picking out and eating; a man and his wife will sit for an hour together performing for each other that friendly office. The women have a comb, which, however, seems more intended for ornament than use, as we seldom or never observed them comb their hair. When a woman's husband is ill, she wears her hair loose, and cuts it off as a sign of mourning if he dies; a custom agreeing with that of the Greenlanders. The men wear the hair on the upper lip and chin from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and some were distinguished by a little tuft between the chin and lower lip.

In winter every individual, when in the open air, wears two jackets, of which the outer one (_C=app~e t=egg~a_) has the hair outside, and the inner one (_At-t=e=ega_) next the body. Immediately on entering the hut the men take off their outer jacket, beat the snow from it, and lay it by. The upper garment of the females, besides being cut according to a regular and uniform pattern, and sewed with exceeding neatness, which is the case with all the dresses of these people, has also the flaps ornamented in a very becoming manner by a neat border of deerskin, so arranged as to display alternate breadths of white and dark fur. This is, moreover, usually beautified by a handsome fringe, consisting of innumerable long narrow threads of leather hanging down from it. This ornament is not uncommon also in the outer jackets of the men. When seal-hunting, they fasten up the tails of their jackets with a button behind.

Their breeches, of which in winter they also wear two pairs, and similarly disposed as to the fur, reach below the knee, and fasten with a string drawn tight round the waist. Though these have little or no waistband, and do not come very high, the depth of the jackets, which considerably overlap them, serves very effectually to complete the covering of the body.

Their legs and feet are so well clothed, that no degree of cold can well affect them. When a man goes on a sealing excursion, he first puts on a pair of deerskin boots (_All~ekt=eeg~a_) with the hair inside, and reaching to the knee, where they tie. Over these come a pair of shoes of the same material; next a pair of dressed sealskin boots, perfectly water-tight; and over all a corresponding pair of shoes, tying round the instep. These last are made just like the moccasin of a North American Indian, being neatly crimped at the toes, and having several serpentine pieces of hide sewn across the sole to prevent wearing. The water-tight boots and shoes are made of the skin of the small seal (_neitiek_), except the soles, which consist of the skin of the large seal (_oguk~e_); this last is also used for their fishing-lines. When the men are not prepared to encounter wet, they wear an outer boot of deerskin, with the hair outside.

The inner boot of the women, unlike that of the men, is loose round the leg, coming as high as the knee-joint behind, and in front carried up, by a long pointed flap, nearly to the waist, and there fastened to the breeches. The upper boot, with the hair as usual outside, corresponds with the other in shape, except that it is much more full, especially on the outer side, where it bulges out so preposterously as to give the women the most awkward, bow-legged appearance imaginable. This superfluity of boot has probably originated in the custom, still common among the native women of Labrador, of carrying their children in them. We were told that these women sometimes put their children there to sleep; but the custom must be rare among them, as we never saw it practised. These boots, however, form their principal pockets, and pretty capacious ones they are. Here, also, as in jackets, considerable taste is displayed in the selection of different parts of the deerskin, alternate strips of dark and white being placed up and down the sides and front by way of ornament. The women also wear a moccasin (_Itteeg~eg~a_) over all in the winter time.

To judge by the eagerness with which the women received our beads, especially small white ones, as well as any other article of that kind, we might suppose them very fond of personal ornament. Yet of all that they obtained from us in this way at Winter Island, scarcely anything ever made its appearance again during our stay there, except a ring or two on the finger, and some bracelets of beads round the wrist; the latter of these was probably considered as a charm of some kind or other. We found among them, at the time of our first intercourse, a number of black and white beads, disposed alternately on a string of sinew, and worn in this manner. They would also sometimes hang a small bunch of these, or a button or two, in front of their jackets and hair; and many of them, in the course of the second winter, covered the whole front of their jackets with the beads they received from us.

Among their personal ornaments must be reckoned that mode of marking the body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the comfort or happiness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively practised throughout the world. Among these people it seems to be an ornament of indispensable importance to the women, not one of them being without it. The operation is performed about the age of ten, or sometimes earlier, and has nothing to do with marriage, except that, being considered in the light of a personal charm, it may serve to recommend them as wives. The parts of the body thus marked are their faces, arms, hands, thighs, and in some few women the breasts, but never the feet, as in Greenland. The operation, which, by way of curiosity, most of our gentlemen had practised on their arms, is very expeditiously managed by passing a needle and thread, the latter covered with lampblack and oil, under the epidermis, according to a pattern previously marked out upon the skin. Several stitches being thus taken at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part while the thread is drawn through, by which means the colouring matter is retained, and a permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin. A woman expert at this business will perform it very quickly and with great regularity, but seldom without drawing blood in many places, and occasioning some inflammation. Where so large a portion of the surface of the body is to be covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process, especially as, for want of needles, they often use a strip of whalebone as a substitute. For those parts where a needle cannot conveniently be passed under the skin, they use the method by puncture, which is common in other countries, and by which our seamen frequently mark their hands and arms. Several of the men were marked on the back part of their hands; and with them we understood it to be considered as a _souvenir_ of some distant deceased person who had performed it.

In their winter habitations, I have before mentioned that the only materials employed are snow and ice; the latter being made use of for the windows alone. The work is commenced by cutting from a drift of hard and compact snow a number of oblong slabs, six or seven inches thick and about two feet in length, and laying them edgeways on a level spot, also covered with snow, in a circular form, and of a diameter from eight to fifteen feet, proportioned to the number of occupants the hut is to contain. Upon this as a foundation is laid a second tier of the same kind, but with the pieces inclining a little inward, and made to fit closely to the lower slabs and to each other by running a knife adroitly along the under part and sides. The top of this tier is now prepared for the reception of a third, by squaring it off smoothly with a knife, all which is dexterously performed by one man standing within the circle and receiving the blocks of snow from those employed in cutting them without. When the wall has attained a height of four or five feet, it leans so much inward as to appear as if about to tumble every moment; but the workmen still fearlessly lay their blocks of snow upon it, until it is too high any longer to furnish the materials to the builder in this manner. Of this he gives notice by cutting a hole close to the ground in that part where the door is intended to be, which is near the south side, and through this the snow is now passed. Thus they continue till they have brought the sides nearly to meet in a perfect and well-constructed dome, sometimes nine or ten feet high in the centre; and this they take considerable care in finishing, by fitting the last block or _keystone_ very nicely in the centre, dropping it into its place from the outside, though it is still done by the man within. The people outside are in the mean time occupied in throwing up snow with the _p~oo=all~er=ay_ or snow shovel, and in stuffing in little wedges of snow where holes have been accidentally left.

The builder next proceeds to let himself out by enlarging the proposed doorway into the form of a Gothic arch, three feet high and two feet and a half wide at the bottom, communicating with which they construct two passages, each from ten to twelve feet long and from four to five feet in height, the lowest being that next the hut. The roofs of these passages are sometimes arched, but more generally made flat by slabs laid on horizontally. In first digging the snow for building the hut, they take it principally from the part where the passages are to be made, which purposely brings the floor of the latter considerably lower than that of the hut, but in no part do they dig till the bare ground appears.

The work just described completes the walls of a hut, if a single apartment only be required; but if, on account of relationship, or from any other cause, several families are to reside under one roof, the passages are made common to all, and the first apartment (in that case made smaller) forms a kind of antechamber, from which you go through an arched doorway five feet high into the inhabited apartments. When there are three of these, which is generally the case, the whole building, with its adjacent passages, forms a tolerably regular cross.

For the admission of light into the huts, a round hole is cut on one side of the roof of each apartment, and a circular plate of ice, three or four inches thick and two feet in diameter, let into it. The light is soft and pleasant, like that transmitted through ground glass, and it is quite sufficient for every purpose. When, after some time, these edifices become surrounded by drift, it is only by the windows, as I have before remarked, that they could be recognised as human habitations. It may, perhaps, then be imagined how singular is their external appearance at night, when they discover themselves only by a circular disk of light transmitted through the windows from the lamps within.

The next thing to be done is to raise a bank of snow, two and a half feet high, all round the interior of each apartment, except on the side next the door. This bank, which is neatly squared off, forms their beds and fireplace, the former occupying the sides, and the latter the end opposite the door. The passage left open up to the fireplace is between three and four feet wide. The beds are arranged by first covering the snow with a quantity of small stones, over which are laid their paddles, tentpoles, and some blades of whalebone: above these they place a number of little pieces of network, made of thin slips of whalebone, and lastly a quantity of twigs of birch[008] and of the _andromeda tetragona_. Their deerskins, which are very numerous, can now be spread without risk of their touching the snow; and such a bed is capable of affording not merely comfort, but luxurious repose, in spite of the rigour of the climate. The skins thus used as blankets are made of a large size and bordered, like some of the jackets, with a fringe of long, narrow slips of leather, in which state a blanket is called _k=eipik_.

The fire belonging to each family consists of a single lamp, or shallow vessel of _lapis ollaris_, its form being the lesser segment of a circle. The wick, composed of dry moss rubbed between the hands till it is quite inflammable, is disposed along the edge of the lamp on the straight side, and a greater or smaller quantity lighted, according to the heat required or the fuel that can be afforded. When the whole length of this, which is sometimes above eighteen inches, is kindled, it affords a most brilliant and beautiful light, without any perceptible smoke or any offensive smell. The lamp is made to supply itself with oil, by suspending a long, thin slice of whale, seal, or seahorse blubber near the flame, the warmth of which causes the oil to drip into the vessel until the whole is extracted. Immediately over the lamp is fixed a rude and rickety framework of wood, from which their pots are suspended, and serving also to sustain a large hoop of bone, having a net stretched tight within it. This contrivance, called _Inn~et~at_, is intended for the reception of any wet things, and is usually loaded with boots, shoes, and mittens.

The fireplace just described as situated at the upper end of the apartment, has always two lamps facing different ways, one for each family occupying the corresponding bedplace. There is frequently, also, a smaller and less-pretending establishment on the same model--lamp, pot, net, and all--in one of the corners next the door; for one apartment sometimes contains three families, which are always closely related; and no married woman, or even a widow without children, is without her separate fireplace.

With all the lamps lighted and the hut full of people and dogs, a thermometer placed on the net over the fire indicated a temperature of 38°; when removed two or three feet from this situation, it fell to 31°; and, placed close to the wall, stood at 23°, the temperature of the open air at the time being 25° below _zero_. A greater degree of warmth than this produces extreme inconvenience by the dropping from the roofs. This they endeavour to obviate by applying a little piece of snow to the place from which a drop proceeds, and this adhering, is for a short time an effectual remedy; but for several weeks in the spring, when the weather is too warm for these edifices, and still too cold for tents, they suffer much on this account.

The most important, perhaps, of the domestic utensils, next to the lamp already described, are the _=o=otk~o~os~e~eks_, or stone pots for cooking. These are hollowed out of solid _lapis ollaris_, of an oblong form, wider at the top than at the bottom all made in similar proportion; though of various sizes corresponding with the dimensions of the lamp which burns under it. The pot is suspended by a line of sinew at each end to the framework over the fire, and thus becomes so black on every side that the original colour of the stone is in no part discernible. Many of them were cracked quite across in several places, and mended by sewing with sinew or rivets of copper, iron, or lead, so as, with the assistance of a lashing and a due proportion of dirt, to render them quite watertight.

Besides the ootkooseeks, they have circular and oval vessels of whalebone, of various sizes, which, as well as their ivory knives made out of a walrus's tusk, are precisely similar to those described on the western coast of Baffin's Bay in 1820. They have also a number of smaller vessels of skin sewed neatly together; and a large basket of the same material, resembling a common sieve in shape, but with the bottom close and tight, is to be seen in every apartment. Under every lamp stands a sort of "save-all," consisting of a small skin basket for catching the oil that falls over. Almost every family was in possession of a wooden tray very much resembling those used to carry butcher's meat in England, and of nearly the same dimensions, which we understood them to have procured by way of Noowook. They had a number of the bowls or cups already once or twice alluded to as being made out of the thick root of the horn of the musk-ox. Of the smaller part of the same horn they also form a convenient drinking-cup, sometimes turning it up artificially about one third from the point, so as to be almost parallel to the other part, and cutting it full of small notches as a convenience in grasping it. These or any other vessels for drinking they call _Imm=o=ochiuk_.

Besides the ivory knives, the men were well supplied with a much more serviceable kind, made of iron, and called _panna_. The form of this knife is very peculiar, being seven inches long, two and a quarter broad, quite straight and flat, pointed at the end, and ground equally sharp at both edges; this is firmly secured into a handle of bone or wood about a foot long, by two or three iron rivets, and has all the appearance of a most destructive spearhead, but is nevertheless put to no other purpose than that of a very useful knife, which the men are scarcely ever without, especially on their sealing excursions. For these, and several knives of European form, they are probably indebted to an indirect communication with our factories in Hudson's Bay. The same may be observed of the best of their women's knives (_ooloo_), on one of which, of a larger size than usual, were the names of "Wild and Sorby." When of their own manufacture, the only iron part was a little narrow slip let into the bone and secured by rivets.

Of the horn of the musk-ox they make also very good spoons, much like ours in shape; and I must not omit to mention their marrow spoons (_patt=ekniuk_, from _p=att~ek_, marrow), made out of long, narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, of which every housewife has a bunch of half a dozen or more tied together, and generally attached to her needle-case.

For the purpose of obtaining fire, the Esquimaux use two lumps of common iron pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands. If this tinder does not readily catch, a small quantity of the white floss of the seed of the ground-willow is laid above the moss. As soon as a spark has caught, it is gently blown till the fire has spread an inch around, when, the pointed end of a piece of oiled wick being applied, it soon bursts into a flame--the whole process having occupied perhaps two or three minutes.

In enumerating the articles of their food, we might, perhaps, give a list of every animal inhabiting these regions, as they certainly will, at times, eat any one of them. Their principal dependance, however, is on the reindeer (_t=o=okto~o_); musk-ox (_=o=om~ingm~uk_), in the parts where this animal is found; whale (_=agg~aw~ek_); walrus (_=ei-~u-~ek_); the large and small seal (_=og~uke_ and _n~eitiek_); and two sorts of salmon, the _=ew~ee-t=ar~oke_ (_salmo alpinus?_) and _ichl=u~ow~oke_. The latter is taken by hooks in fresh-water lakes, and the former by spearing in the shoal water of certain inlets of the sea. Of all these animals, they can only procure in the winter the walrus and small seal upon this part of the coast; and these at times, as we have seen, in scarcely sufficient quantity for their subsistence.

They certainly, in general, prefer eating their meat cooked, and, while they have fuel, they usually boil it; but this is a luxury, and not a necessary to them. Oily as the nature of their principal food is, yet they commonly take an equal proportion of lean to their fat, and, unless very hungry, do not eat it otherwise. Oil they seldom or never use in any way as a part of their general diet; and even our butter, of which they were fond, they would not eat without a due quantity of bread.[009] They do not like salt meat as well as fresh, and never use salt themselves; but ship's pork or even a red herring did not come amiss to them. Of pea-soup they would eat as much as the sailors could afford to give them; and that word was the only one, with the exception of our names, which many of them ever learned in English. Among their own luxuries must be mentioned a rich soup called k=ay~o, made of blood, gravy, and water, and eaten quite hot.

Their only drink is water; and of this, when they can procure it, they swallow an inconceivable quantity; so that one of the principal occupations of the women during the winter is the thawing of snow in the ootkooseeks for this purpose. They cut it into thin slices, and are careful to have it clean, on which account they will bring it from a distance of fifty yards from the huts. They have an extreme dislike to drinking water much above the temperature of 32°. In eating their meals, the mistress of the family, having previously cooked the meat, takes a large lump out of the pot with her fingers, and hands it to her husband, who, placing a part of it between his teeth, cuts it off with a large knife in that position, and then passes the knife and meat together to his next neighbour. In cutting off a mouthful of meat, the knife passes so close to their lips, that nothing but constant habit could ensure them from the danger of the most terrible gashes; and it would make an English mother shudder to see the manner in which children five or six years old are at all times freely trusted with a knife to be used in this way.

The length of one of the best of seven canoes belonging to these Esquimaux was twenty-five feet, including a narrow-pointed projection, three feet long at each end, which turns a little upward from the horizontal. The extreme breadth, which is just before the circular hole, was twenty-one inches, and the depth ten inches and a half. The plane of the upper surface of the canoe, except in the two extreme projections, bends downward a little from the centre towards the head and stern, giving it the appearance of what in ships is called "broken-backed." The gunwales are of fir, in some instances of one piece, three or four inches broad in the centre, and tapering gradually away towards the ends. The timbers, as well as the fore-and-aft connecting pieces, are of the same material, the former being an inch square, and sometimes so close together as to require between forty and fifty of them in one canoe: which, when thus "in frame," is one of the prettiest things of the kind that can be imagined. The skin with which the canoe is covered is exclusively that of the _neitiek_, prepared by scraping off the hair and fat with an _ooloo_, and stretching it tight on a frame over the fire; after which and a good deal of chewing, it is sown on by the women with admirable neatness and strength. Their paddles have a blade at each end, the whole length being nine feet and a half; the blades are covered with a narrow plate of bone round the ends to secure them from splitting; they are always made of fir, and generally of several pieces scarfed and woolded together.

In summer they rest their canoes upon two small stones raised four feet from the ground, and in winter on a similar structure of snow; in one case to allow them to dry freely, and in the other to prevent the snowdrift from covering, and the dogs from eating them. The difficulty of procuring a canoe may be concluded from the circumstance of there being at Winter Island twenty men able to manage one, and only seven canoes among them. Of these, indeed, only three or four were in good repair; the rest being wholly or in part stripped of the skin, of which a good deal was occasionally cut off during the winter, to make boots, shoes, and mittens for our people. We found no _oomiak_, or woman's boat, among them, and understood that they were not in the habit of using them, which may in part be accounted for by their passing so much of the summer in the interior; they knew very well, however, what they were, and made some clumsy models of them for our people.

In the weapons used for killing their game there is considerable variety, according to the animal of which they are in pursuit. The most simple of these is the _=o=on~ak_, which they use only for killing the small seal. It consists of a light staff of wood, four feet in length, having at one end the point of a narwhal's horn, from ten to eighteen inches long, firmly secured by rivets and wooldings; at the other end is a smaller and less effective point of the same kind. To prevent losing the ivory part in case of the wood breaking, a stout thong runs along the whole length of the wood, each end passing through a hole in the ivory, and the bight secured in several places to the staff. In this weapon, as far as it has yet been described, there is little art or ingenuity displayed; but a considerable degree of both in an appendage called _si=atk~o_, consisting of a piece of bone three inches long, and having a point of iron at one end, and at the other end a small hole or socket to receive the point of the oonak. Through the middle of this instrument is secured the _=allek_, or line of thong, of which every man has, when sealing, a couple of coils, each from four to six fathoms long, hanging at his back.

When a seal is seen, the siatko is taken from a little leathern case, in which, when out of use, it is carefully enclosed, and attached by its socket to the point of the spear; in this situation it is retained by bringing the allek tight down and fastening it round the middle of the staff by what seamen call a "slippery-hitch," which may instantly be disengaged by pulling on the other end of the line. As soon as the spear has been thrown and the animal struck, the siatko is thus purposely separated; and being slung by the middle, now performs very effectually the important office of a barb, by turning at right angles to the direction in which it has entered the orifice. This device is in its principle superior even to our barb; for the instant any strain is put upon the line, it acts like a toggle, opposing its length to a wound only as wide as its own breadth.

The _=akl~eak_ or _akl=e=eg~a_, used for the large seal, has a blown bladder attached to the staff, for the purpose of impeding the animal in the water.

The third and largest weapon is that called _katteelik_, with which the walrus and whale are attacked. The staff of this is not longer, but much stouter than that of the others, especially towards the middle, where there is a small shoulder of ivory securely lashed to it for the thumb to rest against, and thus to give additional force in throwing or thrusting the spear. The ivory point of this weapon is made to fit into a socket at the end of the staff, where it is secured by double thongs in such a manner as steadily to retain its position when a strain is put upon it in the direction of its length, but immediately disengaging itself with a sort of spring when any lateral strain endangers its breaking. The siatko is always used with this spear; and to the end of the allek, when the animal pursued is in open water, they attach a whole sealskin (_h~ow-w=ut-t~a_), inflated like a bladder, for the purpose of tiring it out in its progress through the water.

They have a spear called _~ippoo_ for killing deer in the water. They describe it as having a light staff and a small head of iron; but they had none of these so fitted in the winter. The _n=ug~uee_, or dart for birds, has, besides its two ivory prongs at the end of the staff, three divergent ones in the middle of it, with several small double barbs upon them turning inward. The spear for salmon or other fish, called _k=ak~eew~ei_, consists of a wooden staff, with a spike of bone or ivory, three inches long, secured at one end. On each side of the spike is a curved prong, much like that of a pitchfork, but made of flexible horn, which gives them a spring, and having a barb on the inner part of the point turning downward. Their fishhooks (_kakli=okio_) consist only of a nail crooked and pointed at one end, the other being let into a piece of ivory to which the line is attached. A piece of deer's horn or curved bone only a foot long is used as a rod, and completes this very rude part of their fishing-gear.

Of their mode of killing seals in the winter I have already spoken in the course of the foregoing narrative, as far as we were enabled to make ourselves acquainted with it. In their summer exploits on the water, the killing of the whale is the most arduous undertaking which they have to perform; and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage and activity which, with gear apparently so inadequate, it must require to accomplish this business. Okotook, who was at the killing of two whales in the course of a single summer, and who described the whole of it quite _con amore_, mentioned the names of thirteen men who, each in his canoe, had assisted on one of these occasions. When a fish is seen lying on the water, they cautiously paddle up astern of him, till a single canoe, preceding the rest, comes close to him on one quarter, so as to enable the man to drive the _katteelik_ into the animal with all the force of both arms. This having the _siatko_, a long _allek_, and the inflated sealskin attached to it, the whale immediately dives, taking the whole apparatus with him except the katteelik, which, being disengaged in the manner before described, floats to the surface, and is picked up by its owner. The animal reappearing after some time, all the canoes again paddle towards him, some warning being given by the sealskin buoy floating on the surface. Each man being furnished like the first, they repeat the blows as often as they find opportunity, till perhaps, every line has been thus employed. After pursuing him in this manner sometimes for half a day, he is at length so wearied by the resistance of the buoys, and exhausted by the loss of blood, as to be obliged to rise more and more often to the surface, when, by frequent wounds with their spears, they succeed in killing him, and tow their prize in triumph to the shore.

In attacking the walrus in the water they use the same gear, but much more caution than with the whale, always throwing the _katteelik_ from some distance, lest the animal should attack the canoe and demolish it with his tusks. The walrus is, in fact, the only animal with which they use any caution of this kind. They like the flesh better than that of the seal; but venison is preferred by them to either of these, and, indeed, to any other kind of meat.

At Winter Island they carefully preserved the heads of all the animals killed during the winter, except two or three of the walrus, which we obtained with great difficulty. As the blood of the animals which they kill is all used as food of the most luxurious kind, they are careful to avoid losing any portion of it; for this purpose they carry with them on their excursions a little instrument of ivory called _t~oop=o=ot~a_, in form and size exactly resembling a "twenty-penny" nail, with which they stop up the orifice made by the spear, by thrusting it through the skin by the sides of the wound, and securing it with a twist.

One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, being five inches in girth about the middle, where, however, it is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, firmly secured by treenails of the same material. At each end of the bow is a knob of bone, or sometimes of wood covered with leather, with a deep notch for the reception of the string. The only wood which they can procure, not possessing sufficient elasticity combined with strength, they ingeniously remedy the defect by securing to the back of the bow, and to the knobs at each end, a quantity of small lines, each composed of a plat or "sinnet" of three sinews. The number of lines thus reaching from end to end is generally about thirty; but, besides these, several others are fastened with hitches round the bow, in pairs, commencing eight inches from one end, and again united at the same distance from the other, making the number of strings in the middle of the bow sometimes amount to sixty. These being put on with the bow bent somewhat the contrary way, produce a spring so strong as to require considerable force as well as knack in stringing it, and giving the requisite velocity to the arrow. The bow is completed by a woolding round the middle, and a wedge or two, here and there, driven in to tighten it. A bow in one piece is, however, very rare; they generally consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, secured together by rivets and treenails.

The arrows vary in length from twenty to thirty inches, according to the materials that can be commanded. About two thirds of the whole length is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood, and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same size for going over the knobs at the end of the bow.

We tried their skill in archery by getting them to shoot at a mark for a prize, though with bows in extremely bad order on account of the frost, and their hands very cold. The mark was two of their spears stuck upright in the snow, their breadth being three inches and a half. At twenty yards they struck this every time; at thirty, sent the arrows always within an inch or two of it; and at forty or fifty yards, I should think, would generally hit a fawn if the animal stood still. These weapons are perhaps sufficient to inflict a mortal wound at something more than that distance, for which, however, a strong arm would be required. The animals which they kill with the bow and arrow for their subsistence are principally the musk-ox and deer, and less frequently the bear, wolf, fox, hare, and some of the smaller animals.

The reindeer are killed by the Esquimaux in great abundance in the summer season, partly by driving them from islands or narrow necks of land into the sea, and then spearing them from their canoes; and partly by shooting them from behind heaps of stones raised for the purpose of watching them, and imitating their peculiar bellow or grunt. Among the various artifices which they employ for this purpose, one of the most ingenious consists in two men walking directly _from_ the deer they wish to kill, which almost always follows them. As soon as they arrive at a large stone, one of the men hides behind it with his bow, while the other continuing to walk on, soon leads the deer within range of his companion's arrows. They are also very careful to keep to leeward of the deer, and will scarcely go out after them at all when the weather is calm. For several weeks in the course of the summer, some of these people almost entirely give up their fishery on the coast, retiring to the banks of lakes several miles in the interior, which they represent as large and deep, and abounding with salmon, while the pasture near them affords good feeding to numerous herds of deer.

The distance to which these people extend their inland migrations, and the extent of coast of which they possess a personal knowledge, are really very considerable. A great number of them, who were born at Amitioke and Igloolik, had been to _Noowook_, or nearly as far south as Chesterfield Inlet, which is about the _ne plus ultra_ of their united knowledge in a southerly direction. Okotook and a few others of the Winter Island tribe had extended their peregrinations a considerable distance to the northward, over the large insular piece of land to which we have applied the name of Cockburn Island; which they described as high land, and the resort of numerous reindeer. By the information afterward obtained when nearer the spot, we had reason to suppose this land must reach beyond the seventy-second degree of latitude in a northerly direction; so that these people possess a personal knowledge of the Continent of America and its adjacent islands, from that parallel to Chesterfield Inlet in 63-3/4°, being a distance of more than five hundred miles reckoned in a direct line, besides the numerous turnings and windings of the coast along which they are accustomed to travel. Ewerat and some others had been a considerable distance up the Wager River; but no record had been preserved among them of Captain Middleton's visit to that inlet about the middle of the last century.

Of the Indians they know enough by tradition to hold them in considerable dread, on account of their cruel and ferocious manners. When, on one occasion, we related the circumstances of the inhuman massacre described by Hearne, they crowded round us in the hut, listening with mute and almost breathless attention; and the mothers drew their children closer to them, as if to guard them from the dreadful catastrophe.

The Esquimaux take some animals in traps, and by a very ingenious contrivance of this kind they caught two wolves at Winter Island. It consists of a small house built of ice, at one end of which a door, made of the same plentiful material, is fitted to slide up and down in a groove; to the upper part of this a line is attached, and, passing over the roof, is let down into the trap at the inner end, and there held by slipping an eye in the end of it over a peg of ice left for the purpose. Over the peg, however, is previously placed a loose grummet, to which the bait is fastened, and a false roof placed over all to hide the line. The moment the animal drags at the bait, the grummet slips off the peg, bringing with it the line that held up the door, and this, falling down, closes the trap and secures him,

A trap for birds is formed by building a house of snow just large enough to contain one person, who closes himself up in it. On the top is left a small aperture, through which the man thrusts one of his hands to secure the bird the moment he alights to take away a bait of meat laid beside it. It is principally gulls that are taken thus; and the boys sometimes amuse themselves in this manner. A trap in which they catch foxes has been mentioned in another place.

The sledges belonging to these Esquimaux were in general large and heavily constructed, being more adapted to the carriage of considerable burdens than to very quick travelling. They varied in size, being from six feet and a half to nine feet in length, and from eighteen inches to two feet in breadth. Some of those at Igloolik were of larger dimensions, one being eleven feet in length, and weighing two hundred and sixty-eight pounds, and two or three others above two hundred pounds. The runners are sometimes made of the right and left jaw-bones of a whale; but more commonly of several pieces of wood or bone scarfed and lashed together, the interstices being filled, to make all smooth and firm, with moss stuffed in tight, and then cemented by throwing water to freeze upon it. The lower part of the runner is shod with a plate of harder bone, coated with fresh-water ice to make it run smoothly, and to avoid wear and tear, both which purposes are thus completely answered. This coating is performed with a mixture of snow and fresh water about half an inch thick, rubbed over it till it is quite smooth and hard upon the surface, and this is usually done a few minutes before setting out on a journey. When the ice is only in part worn off, it is renewed by taking some water into the mouth, and spirting it over the former coating. We noticed a sledge which was extremely curious, on account of one of the runners and a part of the other being constructed without the assistance of wood, iron, or bone of any kind. For this purpose, a number of sealskins being rolled up and disposed into the requisite shape, an outer coat of the same kind was sewed tightly round them; this formed the upper half of the runner, the lower part of which consisted entirely of moss moulded while wet into the proper form, and being left to freeze, adhering firmly together and to the skins. The usual shoeing of smooth ice beneath completed the runner, which, for more than six months out of twelve, in this climate, was nearly as hard as any wood; and for winter use, no way inferior to those constructed of more durable materials. The cross-pieces which form the bottom of the sledges are made of bone, wood, or anything they can muster. Over these is generally laid a sealskin as a flooring, and in the summer time a pair of deer's horns are attached to the sledge as a back, which in the winter are removed, to enable them, when stopping, to turn the sledge up, so as to prevent the dogs running away with it. The whole is secured by lashings of thong, giving it a degree of strength combined with flexibility which perhaps no other mode of fastening could effect.

The colour of the dogs varies from a white, through brindled, to black and white, or almost entirely black. Their hair in the winter is from three to four inches long; but, besides this, nature furnishes them, during this rigorous season, with a thick under coating of close, soft wool, which they begin to cast in the spring. While thus provided, they are able to withstand the most inclement weather without suffering from the cold; and, at whatever temperature the atmosphere may be, they require nothing but a shelter from the wind to make them comfortable, and even this they do not always obtain. They are also wonderfully enabled to endure the cold even on those parts of the body which are not thus protected; for we have seen a young puppy sleeping, with its bare paw laid on an ice-anchor, with the thermometer at -30°, which, with one of our dogs, would have produced immediate and intense pain, if not subsequent mortification. They never bark, but have a long, melancholy howl like that of the wolf, and this they will sometimes perform in concert for a minute or two together. They are, besides, always snarling and fighting among one another, by which several of them are generally lame. When much caressed and well fed, they become quite familiar and domestic: but this mode of treatment does not improve their qualities as animals of draught. Being desirous of ascertaining whether these dogs are wolves in a state of domestication, a question which we understood to have been the subject of some speculation, Mr. Skeoch, at my request, made a skeleton of each, when the number of all the vertebrae was found to be the same in both,[010] and to correspond with the well-known anatomy of the wolf.

When drawing a sledge, the dogs have a simple harness (_annoo_) of deer or seal skin going round the neck by one bight, and another for each of the fore legs, with a single thong leading over the back and attached to the sledge as a trace. Though they appear at first sight to be huddled together without regard to regularity, there is, in fact, considerable attention paid to their arrangement, particularly in the selection of a dog of peculiar spirit and sagacity, which is allowed, by a longer trace, to precede the rest as leader, and to which, in turning to the right or left, the driver usually addresses himself. This choice is made without regard to age or sex, and the rest of the dogs take precedence according to their training or sagacity, the least effective being put nearest the sledge. The leader is usually from eighteen to twenty feet from the fore part of the sledge, and the hindermost dog about half that distance, so that when ten or twelve are running together, several are nearly abreast of each other. The driver sits quite low on the fore part of the sledge, with his feet overhanging the snow on one side, and having in his hand a whip, of which the handle, made either of wood, bone, or whalebone, is eighteen inches, and the lash more than as many feet in length. The part of the thong next the handle is platted a little way down to stiffen it and give it a spring, on which much of its use depends; and that which composes the lash is chewed, by the women to make it flexible in frosty weather. The men acquire from their youth considerable expertness in the use of this whip, the lash of which is left to trail along the ground by the side of the sledge, and with which they can inflict a very severe blow on any dog at pleasure. Though the dogs are kept in training entirely by fear of the whip, and indeed without it would soon have their own way, its immediate effect is always detrimental to the draught of the sledge; for not only does the individual that is struck draw back and slacken his trace, but generally turns upon his next neighbour, and this, passing on to the next, occasions a general divergency, accompanied by the usual yelping and showing of teeth. The dogs then come together again by degrees, and the draught of the sledge is accelerated; but even at the best of times, by this rude mode of draught, the traces of one third of the dogs form an angle of thirty or forty degrees on each side of the direction in which the sledge is advancing. Another great inconvenience attending the Esquimaux method of putting the dogs to, besides that of not employing their strength to the best advantage, is the constant entanglement of the traces by the dogs repeatedly doubling under from side to side to avoid the whip, so that, after running a few miles, the traces always require to be taken off and cleared.

In directing the sledge the whip acts no very essential part, the driver for this purpose using certain words, as the carters do with us, to make the dogs turn more to the right or left. To these a good leader attends with admirable precision, especially if his own name be repeated at the same time, looking behind over his shoulder with great earnestness, as if listening to the directions of the driver. On a beaten track, or even where a single foot or sledge mark is occasionally discernible, there is not the slightest trouble in guiding the dogs; for even in the darkest night and in the heaviest snowdrift, there is little or no danger of their losing the road, the leader keeping his nose near the ground, and directing the rest with wonderful sagacity. Where, however, there is no beaten track, the best driver among them makes a terribly circuitous course, as all the Esquimaux roads plainly show; these generally occupying an extent of six miles, when with a horse and sledge the journey would scarcely have amounted to five. On rough ground, as among hummocks of ice, the sledge would be frequently overturned or altogether stopped if the driver did not repeatedly get off, and, by lifting or drawing it to one side, steer it clear of those accidents. At all times, indeed, except on a smooth and well-made road, he is pretty constantly employed thus with his feet, which, together with his never-ceasing vociferations and frequent use of the whip, renders the driving of one of these vehicles by no means a pleasant or easy task. When the driver wishes to stop the sledge, he calls out "Wo, woa," exactly as our carters do; but the attention paid to his command depends altogether on his ability to enforce it. If the weight is small and the journey homeward, the dogs are not to be thus delayed; the driver is therefore obliged to dig his heels into the snow to obstruct their progress; and, having thus succeeded in stopping them, he stands up with one leg before the foremost crosspiece of the sledge, till, by means of laying the whip gently over each dog's head, he has made them all lie down. He then takes care not to quit his position; so that, should the dogs set off, he is thrown upon the sledge, instead of being left behind by them.

With heavy loads the dogs draw best with one of their own people, especially a woman, walking a little way ahead; and in this case they are sometimes enticed to mend their pace by holding a mitten to the mouth, and then making the motion of cutting it with a knife, and throwing it on the snow, when the dogs, mistaking it for meat, hasten forward to pick it up. The women also entice them from the huts in a similar manner. The rate at which they travel depends, of course, on the weight they have to draw and the road on which their journey is performed. When the latter is level, and very hard and smooth, constituting what in other parts of North America is called "good sleighing," six or seven dogs will draw from eight to ten hundred weight, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour for several hours together, and will easily, under those circumstances, perform a journey of fifty or sixty miles a day; on untrodden snow, five-and-twenty or thirty miles would be a good day's journey. The same number of well-fed dogs, with a weight of only five or six hundred pounds (that of the sledge included), are almost unmanageable, and will, on a smooth road, run any way they please at the rate of ten miles an hour. The work performed by a greater number of dogs is, however, by no means in proportion to this; owing to the imperfect mode already described of employing the strength of these sturdy creatures, and to the more frequent snarling and fighting occasioned by an increase of numbers.

In the summer, when the absence of snow precludes the use of sledges, the dogs are still made useful on journeys and hunting excursions, by being employed to carry burdens in a kind of saddle-bags laid across their shoulders. A stout dog thus accoutred will accompany his master, laden with a weight of about twenty or twenty-five pounds.

The scent of the Esquimaux dogs is excellent; and this property is turned to account by their masters in finding the seal-holes, which these invaluable animals will discover entirely by the smell at a very great distance. The track of a single deer upon the snow will in like manner set them off at a full gallop when travelling, at least a quarter of a mile before they arrive at it, when they are with difficulty made to turn in any other direction; and the Esquimaux are accustomed to set them after those animals to hunt them down when already wounded with an arrow. In killing bears the dogs act a very essential part; and two or three of them, when led on by a man, will eagerly attack one of those ferocious creatures. An Esquimaux seldom uses any other weapon than his spear and _panna_ in this encounter, for which the readiness of the dogs may be implied from the circumstance of the word "nen-nook" (bear) being often used to encourage them when running in a sledge. Indeed, the only animal which they are not eager to chase is the wolf, of which the greater part of them seem to have an instinctive dread, giving notice at night of their approach to the huts by a loud and continued howl. There is not one dog in twenty among them that will voluntarily, or, indeed, without a great deal of beating, take the water, if they think it is out of their depth, and the few that would do so were spoken of as extraordinary exceptions.

The Esquimaux in general treat their dogs much as an unfeeling master does his slaves; that is, they take just as much care of them as their own interest is supposed to require. The bitches with young are in the winter allowed to occupy a part of their own beds, where they are carefully attended and fed by the women, who will even supply the young ones with meat and water from their mouths as they do their own children, and not unfrequently also carry them in their hoods to take care of them. It is probably on this account that the dogs are always so much attached to the women, who can at any time catch them or entice them from the huts when the men fail. Two females that were with young on board the Fury in the month of February, brought forth six and seven at a litter, and the former number were all females. Their feeding, which, both in summer and winter, principally consists of k=a~ow, or the skin and part of the blubber of the walrus, is during the latter season very precarious, their masters having then but little to spare. They therefore become extremely thin at that time of the year, and would scarcely be recognised as the same animals as when regularly fed in the summer. No wonder, therefore, that they will eat almost anything, however tough or filthy, and that neither whipping nor shouting will prevent their turning out of the road, even when going at full speed, to pick up whatever they espy. When at the huts they are constantly creeping in to pilfer what they can, and half the time of the people sitting there is occupied in vociferating their names, and driving them by most unmerciful blows out of the apartments. The dogs have no water to drink during the winter, but lick up some clean snow occasionally as a substitute; nor, indeed, if water be offered them, do they care about it, unless it happens to be oily. They take great pleasure in rolling in clean snow, especially after or during a journey, or when they have been confined in a house during the night. Notwithstanding the rough treatment which they receive from their masters, their attachment to them is very great, and this they display after a short absence by jumping up and licking their faces all over with extreme delight. The Esquimaux, however, never caress them, and, indeed, scarcely ever take any notice of them but when they offend, and they are not then sparing in their blows. The dogs have all names, to which they attend with readiness, whether drawing in a sledge or otherwise. Their names are frequently the same as those of the people, and in some instances are given after the relations of their masters, which seems to be considered an act of kindness among them. Upon the whole, notwithstanding the services performed by these valuable creatures, I am of opinion that art cannot well have done less towards making them useful, and that the same means in almost any other hands would be employed to greater advantage.

In the disposition of these people, there was, of course, among so many individuals, considerable variety as to the minute points; but in the general features of their character, which with them are not subject to the changes produced by foreign intercourse, one description will nearly apply to all.

The virtue which, as respected ourselves, we could most have wished them to possess, is honesty; and the impression derived from the early part of our intercourse was certainly in this respect a favourable one. A great many instances occurred, some of which have been related where they appeared even scrupulous in returning articles that did not belong to them; and this, too, when detection of a theft, or, at least, of the offender, would have been next to impossible. As they grew more familiar with us, and the temptations became stronger, they gradually relaxed in their honesty, and petty thefts were from time to time committed by several individuals, both male and female, among them.

The bustle which any search for stolen goods occasioned at the huts was sufficient proof of their understanding the estimation in which the crime was held by us. Until the affair was cleared up, they would affect great readiness to show every article which they had got from the ships, repeating the name of the donor with great warmth, as if offended at our suspicions, yet with a half smile on their countenance at our supposed credulity in believing them. There was, indeed, at all times, some, trick, and cunning in this show of openness and candour; and they would at times bring back some very trifling article that had been given them, tendering it as a sort of expiation for the theft of another much more valuable. When a search was making, they would invent all sorts of lies to screen themselves, not caring on whom besides the imputation fell; and more than once they directed our people to the apartments of others who were innocent of the event in question. If they really knew the offender, they were generally ready enough to inform against him, and this with an air of affected secrecy and mysterious importance; and, as if the dishonesty of another constituted a virtue in themselves, they would repeat this information frequently, perhaps for a month afterward, setting up their neighbour's offence as a foil to their own pretended honesty.

In appreciating the character of these people for honesty, however, we must not fail to make allowance for the degree of temptation to which they were daily exposed, amid the boundless stores of wealth which our ships appeared to them to furnish. To draw a parallel case, we must suppose an European of the lower class suffered to roam about amid hoards of gold and silver; for nothing less valuable can be justly compared with the wood and iron that everywhere presented themselves to their view on board the ships. The European and the Esquimaux, who, in cases so similar, both resist the temptation to stealing, must be considered pretty nearly on a par in the scale of honesty; and, judging in this manner, the balance might possibly be found in favour of the latter, when compared with any similar number of Europeans taken at random from the lower class.

In what has been hitherto said, regard has been had only to their dealings with _us_. In their transactions among themselves, there is no doubt that, except in one or two privileged cases, such as that of destitute widows, the strictest honesty prevails, and that, as regards the good of their own community, they are generally honest people. We have, in numberless instances, sent presents by one to another, and invariably found that they had been faithfully delivered. The manner in which their various implements are frequently left outside their huts is a proof, indeed, that robbery is scarcely known among them.

In the barter of their various commodities, their dealings with us were fair and upright, though latterly they were by no means backward nor inexpert in driving a bargain. The absurd and childish exchanges which they at first made with our people induced them subsequently to complain that the Kabloonas had stolen their things, though the profit had eventually been a hundred-fold in their favour. Many such complaints were made, when the only fault in the purchaser had been excessive liberality, and frequently, also, as a retort, by way of warding off the imputation of some dishonesty of their own. A trick not uncommon with the women was to endeavour to excite the commiseration, and to tax the bounty of one person, by relating some cruel theft of this kind that had, as they said, been practised upon them by another. One day, after I had bought a knife of Togolat, she told Captain Lyon, in a most piteous tone, that _Parree_ had stolen her last _ooloo_, that she did not know what to do without one, and at length, coming to the point, begged him to give her one. Presently after this, her husband coming in and asking for something to eat, she handed him some meat, accompanied by a very fine ooloo. Her son, being thus reminded of eating, made the same request, upon which a second knife was produced, and immediately after a third of the same kind for herself. Captain Lyon, having amused himself in watching these proceedings, which so well confirmed the truth of the proverb, that certain people ought to have good memories, now took the knives, one by one, out of their hands, and, holding them up to Togolat, asked her if Parree had not stolen her last ooloo. A hearty laugh all round was the only notice taken by them of this direct detection of the deceit.

The confidence which they really placed in us was daily and hourly evinced by their leaving their fishing gear stuck in the snow all round the ships; and not a single instance occurred, to my knowledge, of any theft committed on their property. The licking of the articles received from us was not so common with them as with Esquimaux in general, and this practice was latterly almost entirely left off by them.

Among the unfavourable traits in their character must be reckoned an extreme disposition to envy, which displayed itself on various occasions during our intercourse with them. If we had made any presents in one hut, the inmates of the next would not fail to tell us of it, accompanying their remarks with some satirical observations, too unequivocally expressed to be mistaken, and generally by some stroke of irony directed against the favoured person. If any individual with whom we had been intimate happened to be implicated in a theft, the circumstance became a subject of satisfaction too manifest to be repressed, and we were told of it with expressions of the most triumphant exultation on every occasion. It was, indeed, curious, though ridiculous, to observe that, even among these simple people, and even in this obscure corner of the globe, that little gossip and scandal so commonly practised in small societies among us were very frequently displayed. This was especially the case with the women, of whom it was not uncommon to see a group sitting in a hut for hours together, each relating her _quota_ of information, now and then mimicking the persons of whom they spoke, and interlarding their stories with jokes evidently at the expense of their absent neighbours, though to their own infinite amusement.

I have already, in the course of the foregoing narrative, hinted at the want of gratitude evinced by these people in their transactions with us. Some exceptions, for they were only exceptions, and rare ones, to this rule, have been mentioned as they occurred; but in general, however considerable the benefit conferred, it was forgotten in a day; and this forgetfulness was not unfrequently aggravated by their giving out that their benefactor had been so shabby as to make them no present at all. Even those individuals who, either from good behaviour or superior intelligence, had been most noticed by us, and particularly such as had slept on board the ships, and whether in health or sickness had received the most friendly treatment from everybody, were in general just as indifferent as the rest; and I do not believe that any one among them would have gone half a mile out of his road, or have sacrificed the most trivial self-gratification to serve us. Okotook and Iligliuk, whom I had most loaded with presents, and who had never offered me a single free gift in return, put into my hand, at the time of their first removal from Winter Island, a dirty, crooked model of a spear, so shabbily constructed that it had probably been already refused as an article of barter by many of the ship's company. On my accepting this, from an unwillingness to affront them, they were uneasy and dissatisfied till I had given them something in return, though their hands were full of the presents which I had just made them. Selfishness is, in fact, almost without exception, their universal characteristic, and the mainspring of all their actions, and that, too, of a kind the most direct and unamiable that can well be imagined.

In the few opportunities we had of putting their hospitality to the test, we had every reason to be pleased with them. Both as to food and accommodation, the best they had were always at our service; and their attention, both in kind and degree, was everything that hospitality and even good-breeding could dictate. The kindly offices of drying and mending our clothes, cooking our provision, and thawing snow for our drink, were performed by the women with an obliging cheerfulness which we shall not easily forget, and which commanded its due share of our admiration and esteem. While thus their guest, I have passed an evening not only with comfort, but with extreme gratification; for, with the women working and singing, their husbands quietly mending their lines, the children playing before the door, and the pot boiling over the blaze of a cheerful lamp, one might well forget for the time that an Esquimaux hut was the scene of this domestic comfort and tranquillity; and I can safely affirm with Cartwright,[011] that, while thus lodged beneath their roof, I know no people whom I would more confidently trust, as respects either my person or my property, than the Esquimaux.

The estimation in which women are held among these people is, I think, somewhat greater than is usual in savage life. In their general employments they are by no means the drudges that the wives of the Greenlander's are said to be; being occupied only in those cares which may properly be called domestic, and, as such, are considered the peculiar business of the women among the lower classes in civilized society. The wife of one of these people, for instance, makes and attends the fire, cooks the victuals, looks after the children, and is sempstress to her whole family; while her husband is labouring abroad for their subsistence. In this respect it is not even necessary to except their task Of cutting up the small seals, which is, in truth, one of the greatest luxuries and privileges they enjoy; and, even if it were esteemed a labour, it could scarcely be considered equivalent to that of the women in many of our own fishing-towns, where the men's business is at an end the moment the boat touches the beach. The most laborious of their tasks occur, perhaps, in making their various journeys, when all their goods and chattels are to be removed at once, and when each individual must undoubtedly perform a full share of the general labour. The women are, however, good walkers and not easily fatigued; for we have several times known a young woman of two-and-twenty, with a child in her hood, walk twelve miles to the ships and back again the same day, for the sake of a little bread-dust and a tin canister. When stationary in the winter, they have really almost a sinecure of it, sitting quietly in their huts, and having little or no employment for the greater part of the day. In short, there are few, if any people, in this state of society among whom the women are so well off. They always sit upon the beds with their legs doubled under them, and are uneasy in the posture usual with us. The men sometimes sit as we do, but more generally with their legs crossed before them.

The women do not appear to be, in general, very prolific. Illumea indeed had borne seven children, but no second instance of an equal number in one family afterward came to our knowledge; three or four is about the usual number. They are, according to their own account, in the habit of suckling their children to the age of three years; but we have seen a child of five occasionally at the breast, though they are dismissed from the mother's hood at about the former age. It is not uncommon to see one woman suckling the child of another, while the latter happens to be employed in her other domestic occupations. They are in the habit, also, of feeding their younger children from their own mouths, softening the food by mastication, and then turning their heads round so that the infant in the hood may put its lips to theirs. The chill is taken from water for them in the same manner, and some fathers are very fond of taking their children on their knees and thus feeding them. The women are more desirous of having sons than daughters, as on the former must principally depend their support in old age.

Twelve of the men had each two wives, and some of the younger ones had also two betrothed; two instances occurred of the father and son being married to sisters. The custom of betrothing children in their infancy is commonly practised here, in which respect these people differ from the natives of Greenland, where it is comparatively rare. A daughter of Arnaneelia, between two and three years old, had long been thus contracted to Okotook's son, a hero of six or seven, and the latter used to run about the hut calling his intended by the familiar appellation of _N~o~oll=e-~a_ (wife), to the great amusement of the parents. When a man has two wives there is generally a difference of five or six years in their ages. The senior takes her station next the principal fire, which comes entirely under her management; and she is certainly considered in some respects superior to the other, though they usually live together in the utmost harmony. The men sometimes repudiate their wives without ceremony, in case of real or supposed bad behaviour as in Greenland, but this does not often occur. There was a considerable disparity of age between many of the men and their wives, the husband being sometimes the oldest by twenty years or more, and this also when he had never married any former wife. We knew no instance in which the number of a man's wives exceeded two, and, indeed, we had every reason to believe that the practice is never admitted among them. We met with a singular instance of two men having exchanged wives, in consequence merely of one of the latter being pregnant at the time when her husband was about to undertake a long journey.

The authority of the husband seems to be sufficiently absolute, depending, nevertheless, in great measure on the dispositions of the respective parties. Iligliuk was one of those women who seem formed to manage their husbands; and we one day saw her take Okotook to task in a very masterly style, for having bartered away a good jacket for an old useless pistol, without powder or shot. He attempted at first to bluster in his turn, and with most women would probably have gained his point. But with Iligliuk this would not do; she saw at once the absurdity of his bargain, and insisted on his immediately cancelling it, which was accordingly done, and no more said about it. In general, indeed, the husband maintains his authority, and in several instances of supposed bad behaviour in a wife, we saw obedience enforced in a very summary manner. It is very rare, however, to see them proceed to this extremity; and the utmost extent of a husband's want of tenderness towards his wife consists in making her walk or lead the dogs, while he takes his own seat in the sledge and rides in comfort. Widows, as might be expected, are not so well off as those whose husbands are living, and this difference is especially apparent in their clothes, which are usually very dirty, thin, and ragged; when, indeed, they happen to have no near relatives, their fate, as we have already seen, is still worse than this.

I fear we cannot give a very favourable account of the chastity of the women, nor of the delicacy of their husbands in this respect. As for the latter, it was not uncommon for them to offer their wives as freely for sale as a knife or a jacket. Some of the young men informed us that, when two of them were absent together on a sealing excursion, they often exchanged wives for the time, as a matter of friendly convenience; and, indeed, without mentioning any other instances of this nature, it may safely be affirmed, that in no country is prostitution carried to greater lengths than among these people. The behaviour of most of the women when their husbands were absent from the huts, plainly evinced their indifference towards them, and their utter disregard of connubial fidelity. The departure of the men was usually the signal for throwing aside restraint, which was invariably resumed on their return. For this event they take care to be prepared by the report of the children, one of whom is usually posted on the outside for the purpose of giving due notice.

The affection of parents for their children was frequently displayed by these people, not only in the mere passive indulgence, and abstinence from corporeal punishment, for which Esquimaux have before been remarked, but by a thousand playful endearments also, such as parents and nurses practise in our own country. Nothing, indeed, can well exceed the kindness with which they treat their children, and this trait in their character deserves to be the more insisted on, because it is, in reality, the only very amiable one which they possess. It must be confessed, indeed, that the gentleness and docility of the children are such as to occasion their parents little trouble, and to render severity towards them quite unnecessary. Even from their earliest infancy they possess that quiet disposition, gentleness of demeanour, and uncommon evenness of temper, for which, in more mature age, they are for the most part distinguished. Disobedience is scarcely ever known; a word or even a look from a parent is enough; and I never saw a single instance of that frowardness and disposition to mischief which, with our youth, so often requires the whole attention of a parent to watch over and to correct. They never cry from trifling accidents, and sometimes not even from very severe hurts, at which an English child would sob for an hour. It is, indeed, astonishing to see the indifference with which, even as tender infants, they bear the numerous blows they accidentally receive, when carried at their mothers' backs.

They are just as fond of play as any other young people, and of the same kind; only that while an English child draws a cart of wood, an Esquimaux of the same age has a sledge of whalebone; and for the superb baby-house of the former, the latter builds a miniature hut of snow, and begs a lighted wick from her mother's lamp to illuminate the little dwelling. Their parents make for them, as dolls, little figures of men and women, habited in the true Esquimaux costume, as well as a variety of other toys, many of them having some reference to their future occupations in life, such as canoes, spears, and bows and arrows. The drum or tambarine, mentioned by Crantz, is common among them, and used not only by the children, but by the grown-up people at some of their games. They sometimes serrate the edges of two strips of whalebone and whirl them round their heads, just as boys do in England to make the same peculiar humming sound. They will dispose one piece of wood on another, as an axis, in such a manner that the wind turns it round like the arms of a windmill; and so of many other toys of the same simple kind. These are the distinct property of the children, who will sometimes sell them, while their parents look on without interfering or expecting to be consulted.

When not more than eight years old, the boys are taken by their fathers on their sealing excursions, where they begin to learn their future business; and even at that early age they are occasionally intrusted to bring home a sledge and dogs from a distance of several miles over the ice. At the age of eleven we see a boy with his water-tight boots and moccasins, a spear in his hand, and a small coil of line at his back, accompanying the men to the fishery, under every circumstance; and from this time his services daily increase in value to the whole tribe. On our first intercourse with them we supposed that they would not unwillingly part with their children, in consideration of some valuable present, but in this we afterward found that we were much mistaken. Happening one day to call myself Toolooak's _attata_ (father), and pretend that he was to remain with me on board the ship, I received from the old man, his father, no other answer than what seemed to be very strongly and even satirically implied, by his taking one of our gentlemen by the arm and calling him _his_ son; thus intimating that the adoption which he proposed was as feasible and as natural as my own.

The custom of adoption is carried to very great lengths among these people, and served to explain to us several apparent inconsistencies with respect to their relationships. The custom owes its origin entirely to the obvious advantage of thus providing for a man's own subsistence in advanced life; and it is consequently confined almost without exception to the adoption of _sons_, who can alone contribute materially to the support of an aged and infirm parent. When a man adopts the son of another as his own, he is said to "_tego_," or take him; and at whatever age this is done (though it generally happens in infancy), the child then lives with his new parents, calls them father and mother, is sometimes even ignorant of any such transfer having been made, especially if his real parents should be dead; and whether he knows it or not, is not always willing to acknowledge any but those with whom he lives. The agreement seems to be always made between the fathers, and to differ in no respect from the transfer of other property, except that none can equal in value the property thus disposed of. The good sense, good fortune, or extensive claims of some individuals were particularly apparent in this way, from the number of sons they had adopted. Toolemak, deriving, perhaps, some advantage from his qualifications as Angetkook, had taken care to negotiate for the adoption of some of the finest male children of the tribe; a provision which now appeared the more necessary, from his having lost four children of his own, besides Noogloo, who was one of his _tego'd_ sons. In one of the two instances that came to our knowledge of the adoption of a female child, both its own parents were still living, nor could we ascertain the motive for this deviation from the more general custom.

In their behaviour to old people, whose age or infirmities render them useless, and, therefore, burdensome to the community, the Esquimaux betray a degree of insensibility bordering on inhumanity, and ill repaying the kindness of an indulgent parent. The old man Hikkeiera, who was very ill during the winter, used to lie day after day, little regarded by his wife, son, daughter, and other relatives, except that his wretched state constituted, as they well knew, a forcible claim upon our charity; and, with this view, it was sure to excite a whine of sympathy and commiseration whenever we visited or spoke of him. When, however, a journey of ten miles was to be performed over the ice, they left him to find his way with a stick in the best manner he could, while the young and robust ones were many of them drawn on sledges. There is, indeed, no doubt that, had their necessities or mode of life required a longer journey than he could thus have accomplished, they would have pushed on like the Indians, and left a fellow-creature to perish. It was certainly considered incumbent on his son to support him, and he was fortunate in that son's being a very good man; but a few more such journeys to a man of seventy would not impose this encumbrance upon him much longer. Illumea, the mother of several grown-up children, lived also in the same hut with her other relations. She did not, however, interfere, as in Greenland, with the management of her son's domestic concerns, though his wife was half an idiot. She was always badly clothed, and, even in the midst of plenty, not particularly well-fed, receiving everything more as an act of charity than otherwise; and she will probably be less and less attended to, in proportion as she stands more in need of assistance.

The different families appear always to live on good terms with each other, though each preserves its own habitation and property as distinct and independent as any housekeeper in England. The persons living under one roof, who are generally closely related, maintain a degree of harmony among themselves which is scarcely ever disturbed. The more turbulent passions which, when unrestrained by religious principle, or unchecked by the dread of human punishment, usually create so much havoc in the world, seem to be very seldom excited in the breasts of these people, which renders personal violence or immoderate anger extremely rare among them; and one may sit in a hut for a whole day, and never observe an angry word or look, except in driving out the dogs. If they take an offence, it is more common for them to show it by the more quiet method of sulkiness, and this they now and then tried as a matter of experiment with us. Okotook, who was often in this humour, once displayed it to some of our gentlemen in his own hut, by turning his back and frequently repeating the expression "good-by," as a broad hint to them to go away. Toolooak was also a little given to this mood, but never retained it long, and there was no malice mixed with his displeasure. One evening that he slept on board the Fury, he either offended Mr. Skeoch, or thought that he had done so, by this kind of humour; at all events, they parted for the night without any formal reconciliation. The next morning Mr. Skeoch was awakened at an unusually early hour, by Toolooak's entering his cabin and taking hold of his hand to shake it, by way of making up the supposed quarrel. On a disposition thus naturally charitable, what might not Christian education and Christian principles effect? Where a joke is evidently intended, I never knew people more ready to join in it than these are. If ridiculed for any particularity of manner, figure, or countenance, they are sure not to be long behind-hand in returning it, and that very often with interest. If we were the aggressors in this way, some ironical observation respecting the _Kabloonas_ was frequently the consequence; and no small portion of wit as well as irony was at times mixed with their raillery.

In point of intellect as well as disposition, great variety was, of course, perceptible among the different individuals of this tribe; but few of them were wanting in that respect. Some, indeed, possessed a degree of natural quickness and intelligence which, perhaps, could hardly be surpassed in the natives of any country. Iligliuk, though one of the least amiable, was particularly thus gifted. When she really wished to develop our meaning, she would desire her husband and all the rest to hold their tongues, and would generally make it out while they were puzzling their heads to no purpose. In returning her answers, the very expression of her countenance, though one of the plainest among them, was almost of itself sufficient to convey her meaning; and there was, in these cases, a peculiarly decisive energy in her manner of speaking which was extremely interesting. This woman would, indeed, have easily learned anything to which she chose to direct her attention; and had her lot been cast in a civilized country instead of this dreary region, which serves alike to "freeze the genial current of the soul" and body, she would probably have been a very clever person. For want of a sufficient object, however, neither she nor any of her companions ever learned a dozen words of English, except our names, with which it was their interest to be familiar, and which, long before we left them, any child could repeat, though in their own style of pronunciation.

Besides the natural authority of parents and husbands, these people appear to admit no kind of superiority among one another, except a certain degree of superstitious reverence for their _angetkooks_, and their tacitly following the counsel or steps of the most active seal-catcher on their hunting excursions. The word _nallegak_, used in Greenland to express "master," and "lord" in the Esquimaux translations of the Scriptures, they were not acquainted with. One of the young men at Winter Island appeared to be considered somewhat in the light of a servant to Okotook, living with the latter, and quietly allowing him to take possession of all the most valuable presents which he received from us. Being a sociable people, they unite in considerable numbers to form a settlement for the winter; but on the return of spring they again separate into several parties, each appearing to choose his own route, without regard to that of the rest, but all making their arrangements without the slightest disagreement or difference of opinion that we could ever discover. In all their movements, they seem to be actuated by one simultaneous feeling that is truly admirable.

Superior as our arts, contrivances, and materials must unquestionably have appeared to them, and eager as they were to profit by this superiority, yet, contradictory as it may seem, they certainly looked upon us in many respects with profound contempt; maintaining that idea of self-sufficiency which has induced them, in common with the rest of their nation, to call themselves, by way of distinction, Innue, or mankind. One day, for instance, in securing some of the gear of a sledge, Okotook broke a part of it, composed of a piece of our white line, and I shall never forget the contemptuous sneer with which he muttered in soliloquy the word "Kabloona!" in token of the inferiority of our materials to his own. It is happy, perhaps, when people, possessing so few of the good things of this life, can be thus contented with the little allotted them.

The men, though low in stature, are not wanting in muscular strength in proportion to their size, or in activity and hardiness. They are good and even quick walkers, and occasionally bear much bodily fatigue, wet, and cold, without appearing to suffer by it, much less to complain of it. Whatever labour they have gone through, and with whatever success in procuring game, no individual ever seems to arrogate to himself the credit of having done more than his neighbour for the general good. Nor do I conceive there is reason to doubt their personal courage, though they are too good-natured often to excite others to put that quality to the test. It is true, they will recoil with horror at the tale of an Indian massacre, and probably cannot conceive what should induce one set of men deliberately and without provocation to murder another. War is not their trade; ferocity forms no part of the disposition of the Esquimaux. Whatever manly qualities they possess are exercised in a different way, and put to a far more worthy purpose. They are fishermen, and not warriors; but I cannot call that man a coward who, at the age of one-and-twenty, will attack a polar bear single-handed, or fearlessly commit himself to floating masses of ice, which the next puff of wind may drift for ever from the shore.

Of the few arts possessed by this simple people, some account has already been given in the description of their various implements. As mechanics, they have little to boast when compared with other savages lying under equal disadvantages as to scantiness of tools and materials. As carpenters, they can scarf two pieces of wood together, secure them with pins of whalebone or ivory, fashion the timbers of a canoe, shoe a paddle, and rivet a scrap of iron into a spear or arrow-head. Their principal tool is the knife (panna); and, considering the excellence of a great number which they possessed previous to our intercourse with them, the work they do is remarkably coarse and clumsy. Their very manner of holding and handling a knife is the most awkward that can be imagined. For the purpose of boring holes, they have a drill and bow so exactly like our own, that they need no farther description, except that the end of the drill handle, which our artists place against their breasts, is rested by these people against a piece of wood or bone held in their mouths, and having a cavity fitted to receive it. With the use of the saw they were well acquainted, but had nothing of this kind in their possession better than a notched piece of iron. One or two small European axes were lashed to handles in a contrary direction to ours, that is, to be used like an adze, a form which, according to the observation of a traveller[012] well qualified to judge, savages in general prefer. It was said that these people steamed or boiled wood, in order to bend it for fashioning the timbers of their canoes. As fishermen or seamen, they can put on a woolding or seizing with sufficient strength and security, and are acquainted with some of the most simple and serviceable knots in use among us. In all the arts, however, practised by the men, it is observable that the ingenuity lies in the principle, not in the execution. The experience of ages has led them to adopt the most efficacious methods, but their practice as handicrafts has gone no farther than absolute necessity requires; they bestow little labour upon neatness or ornament.

In some of the few arts practised by the women there is much more dexterity displayed, particularly in that important branch of a housewife's business, sewing, which, even with their own clumsy needles of bone, they perform with extraordinary neatness. They had, however, several steel needles of a three-cornered shape, which they kept in a very convenient case, consisting of a strip of leather passed through a hollow bone, and having its ends remaining out, so that the needles which are stuck into it may be drawn in and out at pleasure. These cases were sometimes ornamented by cutting; and several thimbles of leather, one of which, in sewing, is worn on the first finger, are usually attached to it, together with a bunch of narrow spoons and other small articles liable to be lost. The thread they use is the sinew of the reindeer (_tooktoo =ew=all~o~o_), or, when they cannot procure this, the swallow-pipe of the _neiliek_. This may be split into threads of different sizes, according to the nature of their work, and is certainly a most admirable material. This, together with any other articles of a similar kind, they keep in little bags, which are sometimes made of the skin of birds' feet, disposed with the claws downward in a very neat and tasteful manner. In sewing, the point of the needle is entered and drawn through in a direction towards the body, and not from it or towards one side, as with our seamstresses. They sew the deerskins with a "round seam," and the water-tight boots and shoes are "stitched." The latter is performed in a very adroit and efficacious manner, by putting the needle only half through the substance of one part of the sealskin, so as to leave no hole for admitting the water. In cutting out the clothes, the women do it after one regular and uniform pattern, which probably descends unaltered from generation to generation. The skin of the deer's head is always made to form the _apex_ of the hood, while that of the neck and shoulders comes down the back of the jacket; and so of every other part of the animal which is appropriated to its particular portion of the dress. To soften the sealskins of which the boots, shoes, and mittens are made, the women chew them for an hour or two together and the young girls are often seen employed in thus preparing the materials for their mothers. The covering of the canoes is a part of the women's business, in which good workmanship is especially necessary to render the whole smooth and water-tight. The skins, which are those of the _neitiek_ only, are prepared by scraping off the hair and the fleshy parts with an _ooloo,_ and stretching them out tight on a frame, in which state they are left over the lamps or in the sun for several days to dry; and after this they are well chewed by the women to make them fit for working. The dressing of leather and of skins in the hair, is an art which the women have brought to no inconsiderable degree of perfection. They perform this by first cleansing the skin from as much of the fat and fleshy matter as the _ooloo_ will take off, and then rubbing it hard for several hours with a blunt scraper, called _si=ak~o~ot_, so as nearly to dry it. It is then put into a vessel containing urine, and left to steep a couple of days, after which a drying completes the process. Skins dressed in the hair are, however, not always thus steeped; the women, instead of this, chewing them for hours together till they are quite soft and clean. Some of the leather thus dressed looked nearly as well as ours, and the hair was as firmly fixed to the pelt; but there was in this respect a very great difference, according to the art or attention of the housewife. Dyeing is an art wholly unknown to them. The women are very expert at platting, which is usually done with three threads of sinew; if greater strength is required, several of these are twisted slackly together, as in the bowstrings. The quickness with which some of the women plat is really surprising; and it is well that they do so, for the quantity required for the bows alone would otherwise occupy half the year in completing it.

It may be supposed that, among so cheerful a people as the Esquimaux, there are many games or sports practised; indeed, it was rarely that we visited their habitations without seeing some engaged in them. One of these our gentlemen saw at Winter Island, on an occasion when most of the men were absent from the huts on a sealing excursion, and in this Iligliuk was the chief performer. Being requested to amuse them in this way, she suddenly unbound her hair, platted it, tied both ends together to keep it out of her way, and then stepping out into the middle of the hut, began to make the most hideous faces that can be conceived, by drawing both lips into her mouth, poking forward her chin, squinting frightfully, occasionally shutting one eye, and moving her head from side to side as if her neck had been dislocated. This exhibition, which they call _=ay=ok~it-t=ak-poke_, and which is evidently considered an accomplishment that few of them possess in perfection, distorts every feature in the most horrible manner imaginable, and would, I think, put our most skilful horse-collar grinners quite out of countenance.

The next performance consists in looking steadfastly and gravely forward, and repeating the words _t~ab=ak-tabak, k~eib=o-keibo, k~e-b=ang-~e-n=u-t~o-~e~ek, kebang-enutoeek, ~am=at~am=a-amatama_, in the order in which they are here placed, but each at least four times, and always by a peculiar modulation of the voice, speaking them in pairs as they are coupled above. The sound is made to proceed from the throat in a way much resembling ventriloquism, to which art it is indeed an approach. After the last _amatama_ Iligliuk always pointed with her finger towards her body, and pronounced the word _angetkook,_ steadily retaining her gravity for five or six seconds, and then bursting into a loud laugh, in which she was joined by all the rest. The women sometimes produce a much more guttural and unnatural sound, repeating principally the word _=ikk~er~ee-ikkeree_, coupling them as before, and staring in such a manner as to make their eyes appear ready to burst out of their sockets with the exertion. Two or more of them will sometimes stand up face to face, and with great quickness and regularity respond to each other, keeping such exact time that the sound appears to come from one throat instead of several. Very few of the females are possessed of this accomplishment, which is called _pitkoo-she-r=ak-poke_, and it is not uncommon to see several of the younger females practising it. A third part of the game, distinguished by the word _keit=ik-poke_, consists only in falling on each knee alternately--a piece of agility which they perform with tolerable quickness, considering the bulky and awkward nature of their dress.

The last kind of individual exhibition was still performed by Iligliuk, to whom in this, as in almost everything else, the other women tacitly acknowledged their inferiority, by quietly giving place to her on every occasion. She now once more came forward, and letting her arms hang down loosely and bending her body very much forward, shook herself with, extreme violence, as if her whole frame had been strongly convulsed, uttering at the same time, in a wild tone of voice, some of the unnatural sounds before mentioned.

This being at an end, a new exhibition was commenced, in which ten or twelve women took a part, and which our gentlemen compared to blind-man's buff. A circle being formed, and a boy despatched to look out at the door of the hut, Iligliuk, still the principal actress, placed herself in the centre, and after making a variety of guttural noises for about half a minute, shut her eyes and ran about till she had taken hold of one of the others, whose business it then became to take her station in the centre, so that almost every woman in her turn occupied this post; and in her own peculiar way, either by distortion of countenance or other gestures, performed her part in the game. This continued three quarters of an hour; and, from the precaution of placing a look-out, who was withdrawn when it was over, as well as from some very expressive signs which need not here be mentioned, there is reason to believe that it is usually followed by certain indecencies, with which their husbands are not to be acquainted. Kaoongut was present, indeed, on this occasion, but his age seemed to render him a privileged person; besides which, his own wife did not join in the game.

The most common amusement, however, and to which their husbands made no objection, they performed at Winter Island expressly for our gratification. The females being collected to the number of ten or twelve, stood in as large a circle as the hut would admit, with Okotook in the centre. He began by a sort of half howling, half singing noise, which appeared as if designed to call the attention of the women, the latter soon commencing the _Amna Aya_ song hereafter described. This they continued without variety, remaining quite still while Okotook walked round within the circle; his body was rather bent forward, his eyes sometimes closed, his arms constantly moving up and down, and now and then hoarsely vociferating a word or two, as if to increase the animation of the singers, who, whenever he did this, quitted the chorus and rose into the words of the song. At the end of ten minutes they all left off at once, and after one minute's interval commenced a second act precisely similar and of equal duration; Okotook continuing to invoke their muse as before. A third act, which followed this, varied only in his frequently, towards the close, throwing his feet up before and clapping his hands together, by which exertion he was thrown into a violent perspiration. He then retired, desiring a young man (who, as we were informed, was the only individual of several then present thus qualified) to take his place in the centre as master of the ceremonies, when the same antics as before were again gone through. After this description it will scarcely be necessary to remark, that nothing can be poorer in its way than this tedious singing recreation, which, as well as everything in which dancing is concerned, they express by the word m~om=ek-poke. They seem, however, to take great delight in it; and even a number of men, as well as all the children, crept into the hut by degrees to peep at the performance.

The Esquimaux women and children often amuse themselves with a game not unlike our "skip-rope." This is performed by two women holding the ends of a line, and whirling it regularly round and round, while a third jumps over it in the middle, according to the following order. She commences by jumping twice on both feet, then alternately with the right and left, and next four times with the feet slipped one behind the other, the rope passing once round at each jump. After this she performs a circle on the ground, jumping about half a dozen times in the course of it, which bringing her to her original position, the same thing is repeated as often as it can be done without entangling the line. One or two of the women performed this with considerable agility and adroitness, considering the clumsiness of their boots and jackets, and seemed to pride themselves, in some degree, on the qualification. A second kind of this game consists in two women holding a long rope by its ends, and whirling it round in such a manner, over the heads of two others standing close together near the middle of the bight, that each of these shall jump over it alternately. The art, therefore, which is indeed considerable, depends more on those whirling the rope than on the jumpers, who are, however, obliged to keep exact time, in order to be ready for the rope passing under their feet.

The whole of these people, but especially the women, are fond of music, both vocal and instrumental. Some of them might be said to be passionately so, removing their hair from off their ears, and bending their heads forward, as if to catch the sounds more distinctly, whenever we amused them in this manner. Their own music is entirely vocal, unless, indeed, the drum and tambarine before mentioned be considered an exception.

The voices of the women are soft and feminine, and, when singing with the men, are pitched an octave higher than theirs. They have most of them so far good ears, that, in whatever key a song is commenced by one of them, the rest will always join in perfect unison. After singing for ten minutes, the key had usually fallen a full semitone. Only two of them, of whom Iligliuk was one, could catch the tune as pitched by an instrument, which made it difficult with most of them to complete the writing of the notes; for if they once left off they were sure to recommence in some other key, though a flute or violin was playing at the time.

* * * * *

During the season passed at Winter Island, which appears to have been a healthy one with the Esquimaux, we had little opportunity of becoming acquainted with the diseases to which they are subject. Our subsequent intercourse with a great number of these people at Igloolik having unfortunately afforded more frequent and fatal instances of sickness among them, I here insert Mr. Edwards's remarks on this subject.

"Our first communication with these people at Winter Island gave us a more favourable impression of their general health than subsequent experience confirmed. There, however, they were not free from sickness. A catarrhal affection, in the month of February, became generally prevalent, from which they readily recovered after the exciting causes, intemperance and exposure to wet, had ceased to operate. A solitary instance of pleurisy also occurred, which probably might have ended fatally but for timely assistance. Our intercourse with them in the summer was more interrupted; but at our occasional meetings they were observed to be enjoying excellent health. It is probable that their certain supplies of food, and the nomade kind of life they lead in its pursuit during that season, are favourable to health. Nutrition goes on actively, and an astonishing increase of strength and fulness is acquired. Active diseases might now be looked for, but that the powers of nature are providentially exerted with effect.

"The unlimited use of stimulating animal food, on which they are from infancy fed, induces at an early age a highly plethoric state of the vascular system. The weaker, over-distended vessels of the nose quickly yield to the increased impetus of the blood, and an active hemorrhage relieves the subject. As the same causes continue to be applied in excess at frequent intervals, and are followed by similar effects, a kind of vicarious hemorrhage at length becomes established by habit; superseding the intervention of art, and having no small share in maintaining a balance in the circulating system. The phenomenon is too constant to have escaped the observation of those who have visited the different Esquimaux people; a party of them has, indeed, rarely been seen, that did not exhibit two or three instances of the fact.

"About the month of September, the approach of winter induced the Esquimaux at Igloolik to abandon their tents and to retire into their more established village. The majority were here crowded into huts of a permanent construction, the materials composing the sides being stones and the bones of whales, and the roofs being formed of skins, turf, and snow; the rest of the people were lodged in snow huts. For a while they continued very healthy; in fact, as long as the temperature of the interior did not exceed the freezing point, the vapours of the atmosphere congealed upon the walls, and the air remained dry and tolerably pure; besides, their hard-frozen winter stock of walrus did not at this time tempt them to indulge their appetites immoderately. In January the temperature suffered an unseasonable rise; some successful captures of walrus also took place; and these circumstances, combined perhaps with some superstitious customs of which we were ignorant, seemed the signal for giving way to sensuality. The lamps were accumulated, and the kettles more frequently replenished; and gluttony, in its most disgusting form, became for a while the order of the day. The Esquimaux were now seen wallowing in filth, while some, surfeited, lay stretched upon their skins, enormously distended, and with their friends employed in rolling them about, to assist the operations of oppressed nature. The roofs of their huts were no longer congealed, but dripping with wet and threatening speedy dissolution. The air was, in the bone huts, damp, hot, and beyond sufferance offensive with putrid exhalations from the decomposing relics of offals or other animal matter permitted to remain from year to year undisturbed in these horrible sinks.

"What the consequences might have been had this state of affairs long continued, it is not difficult to imagine; but, fortunately for them, an early and gradual dispersion took place, so that by the end of January few individuals were left in the village. The rest, in divided bodies, established themselves in snow huts upon the sea-ice at some distance from the land. Before this change had been completed, disorders of an inflammatory character had appeared. A few went away sick, some were unable to remove, and others taken ill upon the ice, and we heard of the death of several about this period.

"Their distance from the ships at once precluded any effectual assistance being rendered them at their huts, and their removal on board with safety; the complaints of those who died at the huts, therefore, did not come under observation. It appears, however, to have been acute inflammation of some of the abdominal viscera, very rapid in its career. In the generality, the disease assumed a more insidious and sub-acute form, under which the patient lingered for a while, and was then either carried off by a diarrhoea, or slowly recovered by the powers of nature. Three or four individuals, who, with some risk and trouble, were brought to the ships, we were providentially instrumental in recovering; but two others, almost helpless patients, were so far exhausted before their arrival, that the endeavours used were unsuccessful, and death was probably hastened by their removal.

"That affection of the eyes known by the name of snow-blindness, is extremely frequent among these people. With them it scarcely ever goes beyond painful irritation, while among strangers inflammation is sometimes the consequence. I have not seen them use any other remedy besides the exclusion of light; but, as a preventive, a wooden eye-screen is worn, very simple in its construction, consisting of a curved piece of wood, six or seven inches long, and ten or twelve lines broad. It is tied over the eyes like a pair of spectacles, being adapted to the forehead and nose, and hollowed out to favour the motion of the eyelids. A few rays of light only are admitted through a narrow slit an inch long, cut opposite to each eye.

"There are, upon the whole, no people more destitute of curative means than these. With the exception of the hemorrhage already mentioned, which they duly appreciate, and have been observed to excite artificially to cure headache, they are ignorant of any rational method of procuring relief. It has not been ascertained that they use a single herb medicinally. As prophylactics, they wear amulets, which are usually the teeth, bones, or hair of some animal, the more rare apparently the more valuable. In absolute sickness they depend entirely upon their Angekoks, who, they persuade themselves, have influence over some submarine deities who govern their destiny. The mummeries of these impostors, consisting in pretended consultations with their oracles, are looked upon with confidence, and their mandates, however absurd, superstitiously submitted to. These are constituted of unmeaning ceremonies and prohibitions generally affecting the diet, both in kind and mode, but never in quantity. Seal's flesh is forbidden, for instance, in one disease, that of the walrus in the other; the heart is denied to some, and the liver to others. A poor woman, on discovering that the meat she had in her mouth was a piece of fried heart instead of liver, appeared horror-struck; and a man was in equal tribulation at having eaten, by mistake, a piece of meat cooked in his wife's kettle.

"Personal deformity from malconformation is uncommon; the only instance I remember being that of a young woman, whose utterance was unintelligibly nasal, in consequence of an imperfect development of the palatine bones leaving a gap in the roof of the mouth."

* * * * *

Whatever may be the abundance sometimes enjoyed by these people, and whatever the maladies occasioned by their too frequent abuse of it, it is certain that they occasionally suffer very severely from the opposite extreme. A remarkably intelligent woman informed Captain Lyon, that two years ago some Esquimaux arrived at Igloolik from a place near _Akkoolee_, bringing information that, during a very grievous famine, one party of men had fallen upon another and killed them; and that they afterward subsisted on their flesh, while in a frozen state, but never cooked or even thawed it. This horrible account was soon after confirmed by Toolemak on board the Fury; and though he was evidently uneasy at our having heard the story, and conversed upon it with reluctance, yet, by means of our questions, he was brought to name, upon his fingers, five individuals who had been killed upon this occasion. Of the fact, therefore, there can be no doubt; but it is certain, also, that we ourselves scarcely regarded it with greater horror than those who related it; and the occurrence may be considered similar to those dreadful instances on record, even among civilized nations, of men devouring one another, in wrecks or boats, when rendered desperate by the sufferings of actual starvation.

The ceremony of crying, which has before been mentioned as practised after a person's death, is not, however, altogether confined to those melancholy occasions, but is occasionally adopted in cases of illness, and that of no very dangerous kind. The father of a sick person enters the apartment, and, after looking at him a few seconds without speaking, announces by a kind of low sob his preparation for the coming ceremony. At this signal every other individual present composes his features for crying, and the leader of the chorus then setting up a loud and piteous howl, which lasts about a minute, is joined by all the rest, who shed abundant tears during the process. So decidedly is this a matter of form, unaccompanied by any feeling of sorrow, that those who are not relatives shed just as many tears as those that are; to which may be added, that in the instances which we saw there was no real occasion for crying at all. It must, therefore, be considered in the light of a ceremony of condolence, which it would be either indecorous or unlucky to omit.

I have already given several instances of the little care these people take in the interment of their dead, especially in the winter season; it is certain, however, that this arises from some superstitious notion, and particularly from the belief that any heavy weight upon the corpse would have an injurious effect upon the deceased in a future state of existence; for even in the summer, when it would be an easy matter to secure a body from the depredations of wild animals, the mode of burial is not essentially different. The corpse of a child observed by Lieutenant Palmer, he describes "as being laid in a regular but shallow grave, with its head to the northeast. It was decently dressed in a good deerskin jacket, and a sealskin prepared without the hair was carefully placed as a cover to the whole figure, and tucked in on all sides. The body was covered with flat pieces of limestone, which, however, were so light that a fox might easily have removed them. Near the grave were four little separate piles of stones, not more than a foot in height, in one of which we noticed a piece of red cloth and a black silk handkerchief, in a second a pair of child's boots and mittens, and in each of the others a whalebone pot. The face of the child looked unusually clean and fresh, and a few days could only have elapsed since its decease."

These Esquimaux do not appear to have any idea of the existence of One Supreme Being, nor indeed can they be said to entertain any notions on this subject which may be dignified with the name of Religion. Their superstitions, which are numerous, have all some reference to the preternatural agency of a number of _to=orng~ow_ or spirits, with whom, on certain occasions, the _Angetkooks_ pretend to hold mysterious intercourse, and who, in various and distinct ways, are supposed to preside over the destinies of the Esquimaux. On particular occasions of sickness or want of food, the Angetkooks contrive, by means of a darkened hut, a peculiar modulation of the voices and the uttering of a variety of unintelligible sounds, to persuade their countrymen that they are descending to the lower regions for this purpose, where they force the spirits to communicate the desired information. The superstitious reverence in which these wizards are held, and a considerable degree of ingenuity in their mode of performing their mummery, prevent the detection of the imposture, and secure implicit confidence in these absurd oracles. Some account of their ideas repecting death, and of their belief in a future state of existence, has already been introduced in the course of the foregoing pages, in the order of those occurrences which furnished us with opportunities of observing them.

NARRATIVE

OF

AN ATTEMPT TO REACH THE

NORTH POLE,

IN BOATS FITTED FOR THE PURPOSE, AND ATTACHED TO HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP HECLA,

IN THE YEAR 1827.

NARRATIVE

INTRODUCTION.

In April, 1826, I proposed to the Right Honourable Viscount Melville, first lord commissioner of the Admiralty, to attempt to reach the North Pole by means of travelling with sledge-boats over the ice, or through any spaces of open water that might occur. My proposal was soon afterward referred to the president and council of the Royal Society, who strongly recommended its adoption; and an expedition being accordingly directed to be equipped for this purpose, I had the honour of being appointed to the command of it; and my commission for his majesty's ship the Hecla, which was intended to carry us to Spitzbergen, was dated the 11th of November, 1826.

Two boats were constructed at Woolwich, under my superintendence, after an excellent model suggested by Mr. Peake, and nearly resembling what are called "troop-boats," having great flatness of floor, with the extreme breadth carried well forward and aft, and possessing the utmost buoyancy, as well as capacity for stowage. Their length was twenty feet, and their extreme breadth seven feet. The timbers were made of tough ash and hickory, one inch by half an inch square, and a foot apart, with a "half-timber" of smaller size between each two. On the outside of the frame thus formed was laid a covering of Macintosh's water-proof canvass, the outer part being covered with tar. Over this was placed a plank of fir, only three sixteenths of an inch thick; then a sheet of stout felt; and, over all, an oak plank of the same thickness as the fir; the whole of these being firmly and closely secured to the timbers by iron screws applied from without. The following narrative will show how admirably the elasticity of this mode of construction was adapted to withstand the constant twisting and concussion to which the boats were subject.[013] On each side of the keel, and projecting considerably below it, was attached a strong "runner," shod with smooth steel, in the manner of a sledge, upon which the boat entirely rested while upon the ice; and, to afford some additional chance of making progress on hard and level fields, we also applied to each boat two wheels, of five feet diameter, and a small one abaft, having a swivel for steering by, like that of a Bath chair; but these, owing to the irregularities of the ice, did not prove of any service, and were subsequently relinquished. A "span" of hide-rope was attached to the forepart of the runners, and to this were affixed two strong ropes of horse-hair, for dragging the boat: each individual being furnished with a broad leathern shoulder-belt, which could readily be fastened to or detached from the drag-ropes. The interior arrangement consisted only of two thwarts; a locker at each end for the nautical and other instruments, and for the smaller stores; and a very slight framework along the sides for containing the bags of biscuit and our spare clothes. A bamboo mast nineteen feet long, a tanned duck sail, answering also the purpose of an awning, a spreat, one boat-hook, fourteen paddles, and a steer-oar, completed each boat's equipment.

Two officers and twelve men (ten of the latter being seamen, and two marines) were selected for each boat's crew. It was proposed to take with us resources for ninety days; to set out from Spitzbergen, if possible, about the beginning of June; and to occupy the months of June, July, and August in attempting to reach the Pole and returning to the ship; making an average journey of thirteen miles and a half per day. Our provisions consisted of biscuit of the best wheaten flour; beef _pemmican_;[014] sweetened cocoa-powder, and a small proportion of rum, the latter concentrated to fifty-five per cent. above proof, in order to save weight and stowage. The proper instruments were provided, both by the Admiralty and the Board of Longitude, for making such observations as might be interesting in the higher latitudes, and as the nature of the enterprise would permit. Six pocket chronometers, the property of the public, were furnished for this service; and Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, with their usual liberality, intrusted to our care several other excellent watches, on trial, at their own expense.

Annexed is a list of the different articles composing the equipment of the boats, together with the actual weight of each.

Enter- Endeav- prise our lbs. lbs. Boat . . . . . . . . . 1539 1542 Bamboo mast, 1 spreat, 1 boat-hook, 1 steer-oar. . 46-1/2 46-1/2 Fourteen paddles . . . . . . . 41 41 Sail (or awning) . . . . . . . 22 22 Spare rope and line . . . . . . 6 6 Small sounding line (750 fathoms in all) . . . 8 10 Carpenters' tools, screws, nails, &c. . . . 10 10 Copper and felt for repairs . . . . . 19 19 Four fowling pieces,with 2 bayonets. . . . 15 15 Small articles for guns. . . . . . -- 4 Ammunition . . . . . . . . 17-1/2 17-1/2 Instruments. . . . . . . . 29 29 Books. . . . . . . . . 7 5-1/2 S { p {Fur Suits for sleeping in (14 in each boat) . . 162 162 a {Thick-nailed boots (14 in each boat) . . . 47 47 r {Esquimaux do., with spare soles (14 in each . e { boat . . . . . . . . 33 33 C {Flannel shirts (7 in each boat) . . . . 8-3/4 8-3/4 l {Guernsey frocks (do. do.) . . . . . 11-1/2 11-1/2 o {Thick drawers (do. do.) . . . . 14 14 t {Mittens (28 in each boat) . . . . . 5 5 h {Comforters (14 in each boat) . . . . 1 1 e {Scotch caps (do. do.) . . . . . 4 4 s { A bag of small articles for the officers, . including soap, &c., &c. . . . . . 4 4 Do. do. for the men do. . . . . . 12 12 Biscuit . . . . . . . . 628 628 Pemmican . . . . . . . . 564 564 Rum . . . . . . . . 180 180 Cocoa powder, sweetened. . . . . . 63 63 Salt . . . . . . . . . 14 14 Spirits of Wine . . . . . . . 72 72 Cooking apparatus. . . . . . . -- 20 Tobacco . . . . . . . . 20 20 Medicine chest . 19 -- Pannikins, knife, fork, and spoon (14 in each boat) . 5 5 Weighing-dials and measures . 2 2 Various small articles for repairs, &c., not mentioned above 14 -- Packages for provisions, clothes, &c 110 116 ---- ---- 14)3753 1/4 3753 3/4

Weight, per man 268 lbs. Exclusive of four sledges, weighing 26 lbs. each.

I have not thought it necessary, in the course of this volume, to enter into any examination of the question respecting the approaches to the North Pole which had already been effected previous to our late attempt. I shall, therefore, only add that, after carefully weighing the various authorities, from which every individual interested in this matter is at liberty to form his own conclusions, my own impartial conviction, at the time of our setting out on this enterprise, coincided (with a single exception) with the opinion expressed by the Commissioners of Longitude in their memorial to the king, that "the progress of discovery had not arrived northward, according to any well-authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of north latitude." The exception to which I allude is in favour of Mr. Scoresby, who states his having, in the year 1806, reached the latitude of 81° 12' 42" by actual observation, and 81° 30' by dead reckoning. I therefore consider the latter parallel as, in all probability, the highest which had ever been attained prior to the attempt recorded in the following pages.

* * * * *

The Hecla being ready to proceed down the river, she was taken in tow, at ten A.M. on the 25th of March, 1827, by the Lightning steam-vessel; and having received and returned the cheers of the Greenwich pensioners, the children of the Naval Asylum, and of various ships in the river, she made fast to the moorings at Northfleet at three P.M. The following day was occupied in swinging the ship round on the various points of the compass, in order to obtain the amount of the deviation of the magnetic needle produced by the attraction of the ship's iron, and to fix Mr. Barlow's plate for correcting it.[015] On the 3d of April the ship's company received three months' wages in advance, together with their river-pay; and on the following morning, at half past four, we weighed and made sail from the Nore.

We had at this time remarkably fine weather for the season of the year, and such a continuance of southerly winds that we arrived off the island of Soroe, within which Hammerfest lies, on the 17th, without having had occasion to make a tack till we entered the fiord which forms the northern entrance.

The wind becoming light from the southward, and very variable, we were occupied the whole of the 18th in beating up towards Hammerfest. In the evening a Lapland boat came on board, and one of the men undertook to pilot the ship to the anchorage, which, after beating all night against an ebb tide, we reached at three A.M. on the 19th. Finding that our reindeer had not arrived, I immediately despatched Lieutenant Crozier, in one of our own boats, to Alten, from whence they were expected--a distance of about sixty English miles. At the same time, we landed our observatories and instruments at Fugleness, near the establishment of Messrs. Crowe and Woodfall, the British merchants residing here; and Lieutenant Foster and myself immediately commenced our magnetic and other observations, which were continued during the whole of our stay here. We completed our supply of water, and obtained a small quantity of venison, with abundance of good fish (principally torsk and cod), and some milk. We also purchased a set of snow-shoes for our travelling party, together with the Lapland shoes of leather (called Kamooga[016]), which are the most convenient and comfortable for wearing with them; and we practised our people in the manner of walking in them in deep snow, which afforded them fine exercise and amusement.

On the 23d, Lieutenant Crozier returned in the boat from Alten, and was followed the next day by Mr. Wooodfall, who brought with him eight reindeer for our use, together with a supply of moss for their provender (_cenomyce rangiferina_). As, however, the latter required a great deal of picking, so as to render it fit to carry with us over the ice, and as it was also necessary that we should be instructed in the manner of managing the deer, I determined on remaining a day or two longer for these purposes. Nothing can be more beautiful than the training of the Lapland reindeer. With a simple collar of skin round his neck, a single trace of the same material attached to the "pulk" or sledge, and passing between his legs, and one rein, fastened like a halter about his neck, this intelligent and docile animal is perfectly under the command of an experienced driver, and performs astonishing journeys over the softest snow. When the rein is thrown over on the off side of the animal, he immediately sets off at a full, trot, and stops short the instant it is thrown back to the near side. Shaking the rein over his back is the only whip that is required. In a short time after setting off, they appear to be gasping for breath, as if quite exhausted; but, if not driven too fast at first, they soon recover this, and then go on without difficulty. The quantity of _clean_ moss considered requisite for each deer per day is four pounds; but they will go five or six days without provender, and not suffer materially. As long as they can pick up snow as they go along, which they like to eat quite clean, they require no water; and ice is to them a comfortable bed. It may well be imagined, with such qualifications, how valuable these animals seemed likely to prove to us; and the more we became accustomed, and, I may say, attached to them, the more painful became the idea of the necessity which was likely to exist, of ultimately having recourse to them as provision for ourselves.

Our preparations were completed on the 27th, but the wind continuing fresh from the northwestern quarter in the offing, we had no prospect of making any progress till the morning of the 29th, when we weighed at six A.M.

On the 5th of May, being in latitude 73° 30', and longitude 7° 28' E., we met with the first straggling mass of ice, after which, in sailing about 110 miles in a N.N.W. direction, there was always a number of loose masses in sight; but it did not occur in continuous "streams" till the morning of the 7th, in latitude 74° 55', a few miles to the eastward of the meridian of Greenwich. On the 10th several whalers were in sight, and Mr. Bennett, the master of the Venerable, of Hull, whom we had before met in Baffin's Bay in 1818, came on board. From him I learned that several of the ships had been in the ice since the middle of April, some of them having been so far to the westward as the island of Jan Mayen, and that they were now endeavouring to push to the northward. They considered the ice to offer more obstacles to the attainment of this object than it had done for many years past.[017] None of the ships had yet taken a single whale, which, indeed, they never expect to do to the southward of about 78°.

In the afternoon, after waiting for some time for the ice to open, we again entered it, in company with all the whalers, and by the following morning had succeeded in pushing about fifty miles farther to the northward, though not without some heavy blows in "boring" through the ice.

At five A.M. on the 14th we passed Magdalena Bay, and by ten o'clock had arrived off Hakluyt's Headland, round which we hauled to the southeastward, to look, for anchorage in Smerenburg Harbour. In this, however, we were disappointed, the whole place being occupied by one unbroken floe of ice, still firmly attached to the land on each side. Here we made fast, though not without considerable difficulty; the wind, which was now freshening from the southward, blowing in such violent and irregular gusts off the high land that the ship was scarcely manageable. Walruses, dovekies, and eider-ducks were very numerous here, especially the former; and four reindeer came down upon the ice near the ship.

We now prepared a quantity of provisions and other stores to land at Hakluyt's Headland, as a supply for my party on our return from the northward; so that, in case of the ship being obliged to go more to the southward, or of our not being able at once to reach her, we should be furnished with a few days' resources of every kind. Our intentions were, however, frustrated for the present; for we had scarcely secured our hawsers, when a hard gale came on from the southward, threatening every moment to snap them in two, and drive us from our anchorage. We held on for several hours, till, at nine P.M., some swell having set in upon the margin of the ice, it began to break off and drift away. Every possible exertion was instantly made to shift our stream cable farther in upon the floe; but it broke away so quickly as to baffle every endeavour, and at ten the ship went adrift, the wind blowing still harder than before. Having hauled in the hawsers and got the boats on board, we set the close-reefed topsails, to endeavour to hang to windward; but the wind blew in such tremendous gusts from the high land as almost to lay the ship on her beam-ends; so that we were obliged to reduce our canvass to the main topsail and stormsails, and let her drive to leeward.[018] The situation of the ship now appeared a very precarious one, the wind still blowing with unabated violence, and with every appearance of a continuance of stormy weather. Under these circumstances, it was the general opinion of the officers, as well as my own, that it was advisable to take advantage of the comparatively smooth water within the stream of ice, and to run the ship into the pack, rather than incur the risk of having to do the same thing in a heavy sea. This plan succeeded remarkably well; a tolerably smooth and open part of the margin being selected, the ship was forced into it at three A.M., when, after encountering a few severe blows from the heavy washed pieces which always occur near the sea-edge, she was gradually carried onward under all sail, and at four A.M. we got into a perfectly smooth and secure situation, half a mile within the margin of a "pack."

It was impossible not to consider ourselves highly fortunate in having thus early, and with no great difficulty, succeeded in reaching the highest latitude to which it was our object to take the ship. But, from what we had already seen at Smerenburg, it was also impossible not to feel much anxiety as to the prospect of getting her into any secure harbour before the proper time of my departure to the northward should arrive. However, we could only wait patiently for the result of a few more days; and, in the mean time, everybody was busily employed in completing the arrangements for our departure, so that, if an opportunity did offer of securing the ship, we might have nothing else to attend to. Our deer were in good order, having been thriving well ever since they came on board; they make excellent sailors, and do not seem to mind bad weather, always lying down quite comfortable whenever there is any sea.

In order to try what our chances were, at the present low temperature, of procuring water upon the ice without expense of fuel, we laid a black painted canvass cloth, and also a piece of black felt, upon the surface of the snow; the temperature of the atmosphere being from 18° to 23°. These substances had, in a couple of hours, sunk half an inch into the snow, but no water could be collected. I was desirous, also, of ascertaining whether any part of the real sea-ice was so entirely fresh when melted as to be drunk without injury or inconvenience. For this purpose we cut a block of ice from a large hummock, about ten feet high above the sea; and having broken, pounded, and melted it, without any previous washing, we found it, both by the hydrometer and by the chemical test (nitrate of silver), _more_ free from salt than any which we had in our tanks, and which was procured from Hammerfest. I considered this satisfactory, because, in the autumn, the pools of water met with upon the ice generally become very brackish, in consequence of the sea-water being drawn up into them by capillary action as the ice becomes more "rotten" and porous; and we might, therefore, have to depend chiefly on melted ice for our daily supply.

No change took place till the 21st, when, on the weather clearing up, we found that the open water we had left to the westward was now wholly closed up, and that there was none whatever in sight. It was now also so close in-shore, that on the 22d, Lieutenant Ross, with a party of officers and men, succeeded in landing without difficulty. They found a small floe of level ice close to the beach, which appeared very lately formed. Walking up to a little conspicuous eminence near the eastern end of the beach, they found it to be composed of clay-slate, tinged of a brownish red colour. The few uncovered parts of the beach were strewed with smooth schistose fragments of the same mineral, and in some parts a quantity of thin slates of it lay closely disposed together in a vertical position. On the little hillock were two graves, bearing the dates of 1741 and 1762 on some of the stones which marked them, and a considerable quantity of fir driftwood lay upon the beach.

I now clearly saw that there was, for the present, no reasonable prospect of our getting towards any harbour; and I could not but feel confident that, even if we did get to the entrance of any, some time must be occupied in securing the ship. It may be well imagined how anxious I had now become to delay no longer in setting out upon the main object of the expedition. I felt that a few days at the commencement of the season, short as it is in these regions, might be of great importance as to the result of our enterprise, while the ship seemed to be so far secure from any immediate danger as to justify my leaving her, with a reduced crew, in her present situation. The nature of the ice was, beyond all comparison, the most unfavourable for our purpose that I remember to have ever seen. It consisted only of loose pieces, scarcely any of them fifteen or twenty yards square; and when any so large did occur, their, margins were surrounded by the smaller ones, thrown up by the recent pressure into ten thousand various shapes, and presenting high and sharp angular masses at every other step. The men compared it to a stone-mason's yard, which, except that the stones were of ten times the usual dimensions, it indeed very much resembled. The only inducement to set out over such a road was the certainty that floes and fields lay beyond it, and the hope that they were not _far_ beyond it. In this respect, indeed, I considered our present easterly position as a probable advantage, since the ice was much less likely to have been disturbed to any great extent northward in this meridian than to the westward clear of the land, where every southerly breeze was sure to be making havoc among it. Another very important advantage in setting off on this meridian appeared to me to be, that, the land of Spitzbergen lying immediately over against the ice, the latter could never drift so much or so fast to the southward as it might farther to the westward.

Upon these grounds it was that I was anxious to make an attempt, at least, as soon as our arrangements could be completed; and the officers being of the same opinion as myself, we hoisted out the boats early in the morning of the 27th, and, having put the things into one of them, endeavoured, by way of experiment, to get her to a little distance from the ship. Such however, were the irregularities of the ice, that, even with the assistance of an additional party of men, it was obvious that we could not have gained a single mile in a day, and, what was still more important, not without almost certain and serious injury to the boats by their striking against the angular masses. Under these circumstances, it was but too evident to every one that it would have been highly imprudent to persist in setting out, since, if the ice, after all, should clear away, even in a week, so as to allow us to get a few miles nearer the main body, time would be ultimately saved by our delay, to say nothing of the wear and tear, and expense of our provisions. I was, therefore, very reluctantly compelled to yield to this necessity, and to order the things to be got on board again.

Immediately after we had, on the 27th, proved experimentally the extreme difficulty of transporting our boats and stores over the ice which now surrounded us, I made up my mind to the very great probability there seemed to be of the necessity of adopting such alterations in our original plans as would accommodate them to these untoward circumstances at the outset. The boats forming the main impediment, not so much on account of their absolute weight as from the difficulty of managing so large a body upon a road of this nature, I made preparations for the possible contingency of our having to take only one, continuing the same number of men in our whole party. All that I saw reason to apprehend from having only a single boat on our outward journey, was some occasional delay in ferrying over spaces of water in two trips instead of one; but we considered that this would be much more than compensated by the increased rate at which we should go whenever we were upon the ice, as we expected to be nine days out of ten. The principal disadvantage, therefore, consisted in our not all being able to sleep in the boat, and this we proposed to obviate in the following manner.

We constructed out of the Lapland snow-shoes fourteen sledges, each sledge consisting of two pairs well fastened together. Upon these we proposed dragging almost all the weight, so as to keep the boat nearly without any cargo in her, as we found by experiment that a man could drag about three hundred pounds on one of the sledges with more facility than he could drag the boat when his proportion did not exceed one hundred pounds. Upon these sledges we proposed lodging half our party alternately each night, placing them under the lee of the boat, and then stretching over them, as a sloped roof, a second awning, which we fitted for the purpose. Upon this plan we likewise could afford to make our boat considerably stronger, adding some stout iron knees to the supports of her runners, and increasing our store of materials for repairing her. The weight reduced by this arrangement would have been above two thousand pounds, without taking away any article conducive to our comfort, except the boat and her gear. I proposed to the officers and men who had been selected to accompany me this change in our equipment; and I need scarcely say that they all clearly saw the probable necessity of it, and cheerfully acquiesced in its adoption, if requisite.

On the 29th I sent Lieutenants Foster and Crozier, with the greater part of the ship's company, and with a third or spare travelling-boat, to endeavour to land her on Red Beach, together with a quantity of stores, including provisions, as a deposite for us on our return from the northward, should it so happen, as was not improbable, that we should return to the eastward. It is impossible to describe the labour attending this attempt. Suffice it to say, that, after working for fourteen hours, they returned on board at midnight, having accomplished about four miles out of the six. The next day they returned to the boat, and, after several hours' exertion, landed her on the beach with the stores. What added to the fatigue of this service was the necessity of taking a small boat to cross pools of water on their return, so that they had to drag this boat both ways, besides that which they went to convey. Having, however, had an opportunity of trying what could be done upon a regular and level floe which lay close to the beach, everybody was of opinion, as I had always been, that we could easily travel twenty miles a day on ice of that kind.

It will not be wondered at if the apparent hopelessness of getting the ship free for the present again suggested the necessity of my own setting out: and I had once more, on the 1st of June, after an anxious consultation with my officers, resolved on making a second attempt, when the ice near us, which had opened at regular hours with the tide for three or four days past, began to set us much more rapidly than usual to the eastward, and towards a low point which runs off from Red Beach, near its western end, causing us to shoal the water in a few hours from fifty-two to twenty fathoms, and on the following morning to fourteen and a half. By sending a lead-line over the ice a few hundred yards beyond us, we found ten fathoms water. However unfavourable the aspect of our affairs seemed before, this new change could not fail to alter it for the worse. The situation of the ship now, indeed, required my whole attention; for the ice occasionally opened and shut within twenty or twenty-five yards of us on the in-shore side, the ship herself was still very firmly imbedded by the turned up masses which pressed upon her on the 19th, and which, on the other side, as well as ahead and astern, were of considerable extent. Thus she formed, as it were, part of a floe, which went drifting about in the manner above described. This was of little importance while she was in sixty fathoms of water, as she was for the first fourteen days of our besetment, and a distance of five or six miles from the land; but now that she had shoaled the water so considerably, and approached the low point within two or three miles, it became a matter of importance to try whether any labour we could bestow upon it would liberate the ship from her present imbedded state, so as to be at least ready to take advantage of slack water, should any occur, to keep her off the shore. All hands were therefore set to work with handspikes, capstan-bars, and axes, it being necessary to detach every separate mass, however small, before the larger ones could be moved. The harassing and laborious nature of this operation is such as nothing but experience can possibly give an idea of, especially when, as in this case, we had only a small pool of clear water near the margin in which the detached pieces could be floated out. However, we continued at work, with only the necessary intermissions for rest and meals, during this and the two following days, and on the evening of the 3d had accomplished all that the closeness of the ice would permit; but the ship was still by no means free, numberless masses of ice being doubled under her, even below her keel, which could not be moved without more space for working.

Painful as was this protracted delay in setting out upon the principal object of the expedition, the absolute necessity of it will scarcely, I think, be doubted by any person conversant in such matters. So long as the ship continued undisturbed by the ice, nearly stationary, and in deep water, for several days together, I had, in my anxiety to lose not a moment's time, ventured to flatter myself with the hope that, in a case of such unlooked-for emergency, when every moment of our short and uncertain season was of importance, I might be justified in quitting my ship at sea; and in this opinion the zeal of my officers, both those who were to accompany me and those who were to remain on board, induced them unanimously to concur. But the case was now materially altered; for it had become plain to every seaman in the ship, first, that the safety of the Hecla, if thus left with less than half her working hands, could not be reckoned upon for an hour; and, secondly, that no human foresight could enable us to conjecture, should we set out while she was thus situated, when or where we should find her on our return. In fact, it appeared to us at this time, as indeed it was, a very providential circumstance, that the impracticable nature of the ice for travelling had offered no encouragement to persevere in my original intention of setting out a week before this time.

For the two following days we continued closely beset, but still driving to the eastward across the mouth of Weyde Bay, which is here six or seven miles in breadth, and appeared to be very deep, the land in the centre receding to a distance of full eight leagues. In the afternoon of the 6th, we had driven within five miles of a point of land, beyond which, to the eastward, it seemed to recede considerably; and this appearing to answer tolerably to the situation of Muscle or Mussel Bay, as laid down in most of the charts, I was very anxious to discover whether we could here find shelter for the ship. A lane of water leading towards the land at no great distance from us, I hauled a boat over the ice and then rowed on shore, accompanied by Lieutenant Foster and some of the other officers, taking with me another small store of provisions, to be deposited here, as a future resource for my party, should we approach this part of the coast.

Landing at half past six P.M., and leaving Mr. Bird to bury the provisions, Lieutenant Foster and myself walked without delay to the eastward, and, on ascending the point, found that there was, as we had supposed, an indentation in the coast on the other side. We now began to conceive the most flattering hopes of discovering something like a harbour for the ship, and pushed on with all possible haste to examine the place farther; but, after three hours walking, were much mortified, on arriving at its head, to find that it was nothing but an open bay, entirely exposed to the inroads of all the northern ice, and therefore quite unfit for the ship. We returned to the boat greatly disappointed, and reached the Hecla at 1.30 A.M. on the 7th.

I do not remember to have ever experienced in these regions such a continuance of beautiful weather as we now had, during more than three weeks that we had been on the northern coast of Spitzbergen. Day after day we had a clear and cloudless sky, scarcely any wind, and, with the exception of a few days previous to the 23d of May, a warm temperature in the shade, and quite a scorching sun. On the 3d of June we had a shower of rain, and on the 6th it rained pretty hard for two or three hours. After the 1st of June we could procure abundance of excellent water upon the ice, and by the end of the first week the floe-pieces were looking blue with it in some parts, and the snow had everywhere become too soft to bear a man's weight.

On the 7th, the ship, still closely beset, had drifted much more to the eastward, being within a mile of the spot where the provisions had been deposited the preceding evening. There was now no other ice between us and the land except the floe to which we had been so long attached; and round this we were occasionally obliged to warp, whenever a little slackening of the ice permitted, in order to prevent our getting too near the rocks. In this situation of suspense and anxiety we still remained until the evening of the 8th, when a breeze at length springing up from the southward began to open out the ice from the point near which we lay. As soon as the channel was three or four hundred yards wide, we warped into the clear water, and, making sail, rounded the point in safety, having no soundings with twenty fathoms, at one third of a mile from a small rocky islet lying off it. In the mean time the wind had been driving the ice so fast off the land as to form for us a clear communication with the open water before seen to the eastward; and thus we were at length liberated from our confinement, after a close and tedious "besetment" of twenty-four days.

The weather continued so thick, that, impatient as we were to stand in towards the eastern land, we could not venture to do so till eleven A.M. on the 10th, when we made sail towards Brandywine Bay, the wind being now from the W.S.W., or nearly dead upon that shore. The weather clearing up at 1.15 P.M., we saw the eastern land, and soon after discovered the grounded ice off Low Island; Walden's Island was also plainly in sight to the N.E. The bay seemed deeply indented, and very likely to afford nooks such as we wanted; and where so large a space of open water, and, consequently, some sea, had been exerting its influence for a considerable time, we flattered ourselves with the most sanguine hopes of now having access to the shores, sufficiently near, at least, for sawing into some place of shelter. How, then, shall I express our surprise and mortification in finding that the whole of the coast, from the islands northward to Black Point, and apparently also as far as Walden's Island, was rendered inaccessible by one continuous and heavy floe, everywhere attached to the shores, and to the numberless grounded masses about the island, this immense barrier being in some places six or seven miles in width, and not less than twelve feet in thickness near the margin.

The prospect from our masthead at this time was certainly enough to cast a damp over every sanguine expectation I had formed, of being _soon_ enabled to place the Hecla in security; and more willingly than ever would I, at this period, have persuaded myself, if possible, that I should be justified in quitting her at sea. Such, however, was the nature of this navigation, as regarded the combined difficulties arising from ice and a large extent of shoal and unsurveyed ground, that, even with our full complement of officers and men on board, all our strength and exertions might scarcely have sufficed, in a single gale of wind, to keep the ship tolerably secure, and much less could I have ensured placing her ultimately in any proper situation for picking up an absent party; for, if once again beset, she must, of course, be at the mercy of the ice. The conclusion was, therefore, irresistibly forced upon my mind, that thus to leave the ship would be to expose her to imminent and certain peril, rendering it impossible to conjecture where we should find her on our return, and, therefore, rashly to place all parties in a situation from which nothing but disaster could reasonably be expected to ensue.

After beating through much ice, which was all of the drift or broken kind, and had all found its way hither in the last two days, we got into an open space of water in-shore, and about six miles to the northward of Low Island; and on the morning of the 13th stretched in towards Walden Island, around which we found, as we had feared, a considerable quantity of fixed ice. It was certainly much less here, than elsewhere; but the inner, or eastern side of the island was entirely enveloped by it.

Having from twenty-six to twenty-four fathoms at the distance of four miles from Walden Island, I was preparing two boats, with the intention of going to sound about its northern point, which was the most clear of ice, and not without a faint hope of finding something like shelter there; but I was prevented by a thick fog coming on. Continuing, therefore, to beat to the northward, we passed occasionally a good deal of drift ice, but with every appearance of much clear water in that direction; and the weather clearing about midnight, we observed in latitude 80°43'32". The Seven Islands were in sight to the eastward, and the "Little Table Island" of Phipps bore E.N.E. (true) distant about nine or ten miles. It is a mere craggy rock, rising, perhaps, from four to five hundred feet above the level of the sea, and with a small low islet lying off its northern end. This island, being the northernmost known land in the world, naturally excited much of our curiosity; and bleak, and barren, and rugged as it is, one could not help gazing at it with intense interest.

At midnight on the 14th we had reached the latitude 81°5'32" Our longitude by chronometers at this time was 19° 34' E., Little Table Island bearing S. 26° E. (true), distant six or seven leagues, and Walden Island S. 4° E.[019] The depth of water was ninety-seven fathoms, on a bottom of greenish mud; and the temperature at ninety-five fathoms, by Six's thermometer, was 29.8°, that at the surface being 31°, and of the air 28°. All that could here be seen to the northward was loose drift-ice. To the northeast it was particularly open, and I have no doubt that we might have gone many miles farther in that direction, had it not been a much more important object to keep the ship free than to push her to the northward.

We now stood back again to the southward, in order again to examine the coast wherever we could approach it; but found, on the 15th, that none of the land was at all accessible, the wind having got round to the W.N.W., and loaded all the shores with drift-ice.

Walden Island being the first part clear of the loose ice, we stretched in for it on the 16th, and, when within two miles, observed that about half that space was occupied by land-ice, even on its northwestern side, which was the only accessible one, the rest being wholly enclosed by it. However, being desirous of obtaining a better view than our crow's-nest commanded, and also of depositing here a small quantity of provisions, I left the ship at one P.M., accompanied by Lieutenant Foster in a second boat, and, landing upon the ice, walked over about three quarters of a mile of high and rugged hummocks to the shore. Ascending two or three hundred feet, we had a clear and extensive view of the Seven Islands, and of some land far beyond them to the eastward; and the whole sea was covered with one unbroken land-floe, attached to all the shores extending from the island where we stood, and which formed an abutment for it each way along the land as far as the eye could reach. After this discouraging prospect, which wholly destroyed every hope of finding a harbour among the Seven Islands, we returned to the place where the men had deposited the provisions, and, after making the necessary observations for the survey, returned immediately on board.

Observing from the island that the sea was perfectly clear to the northward, we now stood for Little Table Island, with some slight hope that the rock off its northern end might afford shelter for the ship; at all events, being the most exposed, on account of its situation, it was the most likely to be free from ice. A thick fog prevented our getting near it till the morning of the 17th, when, having approached it within a mile and a half, I sent Lieutenant Ross on shore to a little islet, which was quite free from ice, where he deposited another small store of provisions, but found nothing like shelter for the ship.

Having no farther business here, and the easterly wind still continuing, I thought the best thing we could do would be to run again to the southward of Low Island, and try once more to approach the shores about the entrance of the Waygatz Strait. We therefore bore up under all sail to the southwest.

It would be vain to deny that I had lately begun to entertain the most serious apprehensions as related to the accomplishment of our principal object. The 17th of June had now arrived, and all that we saw afforded us the most discouraging prospect as to our getting the Hecla into harbour; while every day's experience showed how utterly rash a measure it would be to think of quitting her in her present situation, which, even with all her officers and men, was one of extreme precariousness and uncertainty.

On the evening of the 18th, while standing in for the high land to the eastward of Verlegen Hook, which, with due attention to the lead, may be approached with safety, we perceived from the crow's-nest what appeared a low point, possibly affording some shelter for the ship, and which seemed to answer to an indentation of the coast laid down in an old Dutch chart, and there called _Treurenburg Bay_.

On the following morning I proceeded to examine the place, accompanied by Lieutenant Ross in a second boat, and, to our great joy, found it a considerable bay, with one part affording excellent landlocked anchorage and, what was equally fortunate, sufficiently clear of ice to allow the ship to enter. Having sounded the entrance and determined on the anchorage, we returned to the ship to bring her in; and I cannot describe the satisfaction which the information of our success communicated to every individual on board. The main object of our enterprise now appeared almost within our grasp, and everybody seemed anxious to make up, by renewed exertions, for the time we had unavoidably lost. The ship was towed and warped in with the greatest alacrity, and at 1.40 A.M. on June 20th, we dropped the anchor in Hecla Cove, in thirteen fathoms, on a bottom of very tenacious blue clay, and made some hawsers fast to the land-ice, which still filled all the upper part of the bay. After resting a few hours, we sawed a canal a quarter of a mile in length, through which the ship was removed into a better situation, a bower-cable taken on shore and secured to the rocks, and an anchor, with the chain-cable, laid out the other way. On the morning of the 21st we hauled the launch up on the beach, it being my intention to direct such resources of every kind to be landed as would render our party wholly independent of the ship, either for returning to England or for wintering, in case of the ship being driven to sea by the ice; a contingency against which, in these regions, no precaution can altogether provide. I directed Lieutenant Foster, upon whom the charge of the Hecla was now to devolve, to land without delay the necessary stores, keeping the ship seaworthy by taking in an equal quantity of ballast; and, as soon as he should be satisfied of her security from ice, to proceed on the survey of the eastern coast; but, should he see reason to doubt her safety with a still farther diminution of her crew to relinquish the survey, and attend exclusively to the ship. I also gave directions that notices should be sent, in the course of the summer, to the various stations where our depots of provisions were established, acquainting me with the situation and state of the ship, and giving me any other information which might be necessary for my guidance on our return from the northward. These and other arrangements being completed, I left the ship at five P.M. with our two boats, which we named the Enterprise and Endeavour, Mr. Beverly being attached to my own, and Lieutenant Ross, accompanied by Mr. Bird, in the other. Besides these, I took Lieutenant Crozier in one of the ship's cutters, for the purpose of carrying some of our weight as far as Walden Island, and also a third store of provisions to be deposited on Low Island, as an intermediate station between Walden Island and the ship. As it was still necessary not to delay our return beyond the end of August, the time originally intended, I took, with me only seventy-one days provisions; which, including the boats and every other article, made up a weight of 268 lbs. per man; and as it appeared highly improbable, from what we had seen of the very rugged nature of the ice we should first have to encounter, that either the reindeer, the snow-shoes, or the wheels would prove of any service for some time to come, I gave up the idea of taking them. We, however, constructed out of the snow-shoes four excellent sledges for dragging a part of our baggage over the ice; and these proved of invaluable service to us, while the rest of the things just mentioned would only have been an encumbrance.

Having received the usual salutation of three cheers from those we left behind, we paddled through a quantity of loose ice at the entrance of the bay, and then steered, in a perfectly open sea, and with calm and beautiful weather, for the western part of Low Island, which we reached at half past two on the morning of the 22d.

Having deposited the provisions, we set off at four A.M., paddling watch and watch, to give the people a little rest. It was still quite calm; but there being much ice about the island, and a thick fog coming on, we were several hours groping our way clear of it. The walruses were here very numerous, lying in herds upon the ice, and plunging into the water to follow us as we passed. The sound they utter is something between bellowing and very loud snorting, which, together with their grim, bearded countenances and long tusks, makes them appear, as indeed they are, rather formidable enemies to contend with. Under our present circumstances, we were very well satisfied not to molest them, for they would soon have destroyed our boats if one had been wounded; but I believe they are never the first to make the attack. We landed upon the ice still attached to Walden Island at 3.30 A.M. on the 23d. Our flat-bottomed boats rowed heavily with their loads, but proved perfectly safe, and very comfortable. The men being much fatigued, we rested here some hours, and, after making our final arrangements with Lieutenant Crozier, parted with him at three in the afternoon, and set off for Little Table Island. Finding there was likely to be so much open water in this neighbourhood in the autumn, I sent directions to Lieutenant Foster to have a spare boat deposited at Walden Island in time for our return, in case of any accident happening to ours.

The land-ice, which still adhered to the Seven Islands, was very little more broken off than when the Hecla had been here a week before; and we rowed along its margin a part of the way to Little Table Island, where we arrived at ten P.M. We here examined and re-secured the provisions left on shore, having found our depôt at Walden Island disturbed by the bears. The prospect to the northward at this time was very favourable, there being only a small quantity of loose ice in sight; and the weather still continuing calm and clear, with the sea as smooth as a mirror, we set off without delay, at half past ten, taking our final leave of the Spitzbergen shores, as we hoped, for at least two months. Steering due north, we made good progress, our latitude by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight being 80° 51' 13". A beautifully-coloured rainbow appeared for some time, without any appearance of rain falling. We observed that a considerable current was setting us to the eastward just after leaving the land, so that we had made a N.N.E. course, distance about ten miles, when we met with some ice, which soon becoming too close for farther progress, we landed upon a high hummock to obtain a better view. We here perceived that the ice was close to the northward, but to the westward we discovered some open water, which we reached after two or three hours' paddling, and found it a wide expanse, in which we sailed to the northward without obstruction, a fresh breeze having sprung up from the S.W. The weather soon after became very thick, with continued snow, requiring great care in looking out for the ice, which made its appearance after two hours' run, and gradually became closer, till at length we were stopped by it at noon, and obliged to haul the boats upon a small floe-piece, our latitude by observation being 81° 12' 51".

Our plan of travelling being nearly the same throughout this excursion, after we first entered upon the ice, I may at once give some account of our usual mode of proceeding. It was my intention to travel wholly at night, and to rest by day, there being, of course, constant daylight in these regions during the summer season. The advantages of this plan, which was occasionally deranged by circumstances, consisted, first, in our avoiding the intense and oppressive glare from the snow during the time of the sun's greatest altitude, so as to prevent, in some degree, the painful inflammation in the eyes called "snow blindness," which is common in all snowy countries. We also thus enjoyed greater warmth during the hours of rest, and had a better chance of drying our clothes; besides which, no small advantage was derived from the snow being harder at night for travelling. The only disadvantage of this plan was, that the fogs were somewhat more thick by night than by day, though even in this respect there was less difference than might have been supposed, the temperature during the twenty-four hours undergoing but little variation. This travelling by night and sleeping by day so completely inverted the natural order of things, that it was difficult to persuade ourselves of the reality. Even the officers and myself, who were all furnished with pocket chronometers, could not always bear in mind at what part of the twenty-four hours we had arrived; and there were several of the men who declared, and I believe truly, that they, never knew night from day during the whole excursion.[020]

When we rose in the evening, we commenced our day by prayers, after which we took off our fur sleeping-dresses and put on those for travelling; the former being made of camlet, lined with racoon-skin, and the latter of strong blue box-cloth. We made a point of always putting on the same stockings and boots for travelling in, whether they dried during the day or not; and I believe it was only in five or six instances, at the most, that they were not either wet or hard-frozen. This, indeed, was of no consequence, beyond the discomforture of first putting them on in this state, as they were sure to be thoroughly wet in a quarter of an hour after commencing our journey; while, on the other hand, it was of vital importance to keep dry things for sleeping in. Being "rigged" for travelling, we breakfasted upon warm cocoa and biscuit, and, after stowing the things in the boats and on the sledges, so as to secure them as much as possible from wet, we set off on our day's journey, and usually travelled from five to five and a half hours, then stopped an hour to dine, and again travelled four, five, or even six hours, according to circumstances. After this we halted for the night, as we called it, though it was usually early in the morning, selecting the largest surface of ice we happened to be near for hauling the boats on, in order to avoid the danger of its breaking up by coming in contact with other masses, and also to prevent drift as much as possible. The boats were placed close alongside each other, with their sterns to the wind, the snow or wet cleared out of them, and the sails, supported by the bamboo masts and three paddles, placed over them as awnings, an entrance being left at the bow. Every man then immediately put on dry stockings and fur boots, after which we set about the necessary repairs of boats, sledges, or clothes; and, after serving the provisions for the succeeding day, we went to supper. Most of the officers and men then smoked their pipes, which served to dry the boats and awnings very much, and usually raised the temperature of our lodgings 10° or 15°. This part of the twenty-four hours was often a time, and the only one, of real enjoyment to us; the men told their stories and "fought all their battles o'er again," and the labours of the day, unsuccessful as they too often were, were forgotten. A regular watch was set during our resting-time, to look out for bears or for the ice breaking up round us, as well as to attend to the drying of the clothes, each man alternately, taking this duty for one hour. We then concluded our day with prayers, and, having put on our fur-dresses, lay down to sleep with a degree of comfort, which perhaps few persons would imagine possible under such circumstances; our chief inconvenience being that we were somewhat pinched for room, and therefore obliged to stow rather closer than was quite agreeable. The temperature, while we slept, was usually from 36° to 45°, according to the state of the external atmosphere; but on one or two occasions in calm and warm weather, it rose as high as 60° to 66°, obliging us to throw off a part of our fur-dress. After we had slept seven hours, the man appointed to boil the cocoa roused us when it was ready by the sound of a bugle, when we commenced our day in the manner before described.

Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was as follows:

Biscuit 10 ounces. Pemmican 9 ounces. Sweetened Cocoa Powder 1 ounce, to make one pint. Rum 1 gill. Tobacco 3 ounces per week.

Our fuel consisted entirely of spirits of wine, of which two pints formed our daily allowance, the cocoa being cooked in an iron boiler over a shallow iron lamp, with seven wicks; a simple apparatus, which answered our purpose remarkably well. We usually found one pint of the spirits of wine sufficient for preparing our breakfast, that is, for heating twenty-eight pints of water, though it always commenced from the temperature of 32°. If the weather was calm and fair, this quantity of fuel brought it to the boiling point in about an hour and a quarter; but more generally the wicks began to go out before it had reached. 200°. This, however, made a very comfortable meal to persons situated as we were. Such, with very little variation, was our regular routine during the whole of this excursion.

We set off on our first journey over the ice at ten P.M. on the 24th, Table Island bearing S.S.W., and a fresh breeze blowing from W.S.W., with thick fog, which afterward changed to rain. The bags of pemmican were placed upon the sledges, and the bread in the boats, with the intention of securing the latter from wet; but this plan we were soon obliged to relinquish. We now commenced upon very slow and laborious travelling, the pieces of ice being of small extent and very rugged, obliging us to make three journeys, and sometimes four, with the boats and baggage, and to launch several times across narrow pools of water. We stopped to dine at five A.M. on the 25th, having made, by our log (which we kept very carefully, marking the courses by compass, and estimating the distances), about two miles and a half of northing; and, again setting forward, proceeded till eleven A.M., when we halted to rest; our latitude, by observation at noon, being 81° 15' 13".

Setting out again at half past nine in the evening, we found our way to lie over nothing but small, loose, rugged masses of ice, separated by little pools of water, obliging us constantly to launch and haul up the boats, each of which operations required them to be unloaded, and occupied nearly a quarter of an hour. It came on to rain very hard on the morning of the 26th; and, finding we were making very little progress (having advanced not more than half a mile in four hours), and that our clothes would be soon wet through, we halted at half past one, and took shelter under the awnings. The weather improving at six o'clock, we again moved forward, and travelled till a quarter past eleven, when we hauled the boats upon the only tolerably large floe-piece in sight. The rain had very much increased the quantity of water lying upon the ice, of which nearly half the surface was now covered with numberless little ponds of various shapes and extent. It is a remarkable fact, that we had already experienced, in the course of this summer, more rain than during the whole of seven previous summers taken together, though passed in latitudes from 7° to 15° lower than this. A great deal of the ice over which we passed to-day presented a very curious appearance and structure, being composed, on its upper surface, of numberless irregular, needle-like crystals, placed vertically, and nearly close together; their length varying, in different pieces of ice, from five to ten inches, and their breadth in the middle about half an inch, but pointed at both ends. The upper surface of ice having this structure sometimes looks like greenish velvet; a vertical section of it, which frequently occurs at the margin of floes, resembles, while it remains compact, the most beautiful satin-spar, and asbestos when falling to pieces. At this early part of the season, this kind of ice afforded pretty firm footing; but, as the summer advanced, the needles became more loose and moveable, rendering it extremely fatiguing to walk over them, besides cutting our boots and feet, on which account the men called them "penknives."

We pursued our journey at half past nine P.M., with the wind at N.E., and thick weather, the ice being so much in motion as to make it very dangerous to cross in loaded boats, the masses being all very small. On this account we halted at midnight, having waded three quarters of a mile through water from two to five inches deep upon the ice. The thermometer was at 33°.

At seven A.M. on the 28th, we came to a floe covered with high and rugged hummocks, which opposed a formidable obstacle to our progress, occurring in two or three successive tiers, so that we had no sooner crossed one than another presented itself. Over one of these we hauled the boats with extreme difficulty by a "standing pull," and the weather being then so thick that we could see no pass across the next tier, we were obliged to stop at nine A.M. While performing this laborious work, which required the boats to be got up and down places almost perpendicular, James Parker, my coxswain, received a severe contusion in his back, by the boat falling upon him from a hummock, and the boats were constantly subject to very heavy blows, but sustained no damage.[021] The weather continued very foggy during the day, but a small lane of water opening out at no great distance from the margin of the floe, we launched the boats at eight in the evening among loose drift-ice, and, after some time, landed on a small floe to the eastward, the only one in sight, with the hope of its leading to the northward. It proved so rugged that we were obliged to make three, and sometimes four journeys with the boats and provisions, and this by a very circuitous route; so that the road, by which we made a mile of northing, was full a mile and a half in length, and over this we had to travel at least five, and sometimes seven times. Thus, when we halted to dine at two A.M., after six hours' severe toil, and much risk to the men and boats, we had only accomplished about a mile and a quarter in a N.N.E. direction. After dining we proceeded again till half past six, and then halted, very much fatigued with our day's work, and having made two miles and a half of northing. We were here in latitude, by account, 81° 23", and in longitude, by the chronometers, 21° 32' 34" E., in which situation the variation of the magnetic needle was observed to be 15° 31' westerly. We now enjoyed the first sunshine since our entering the ice, and a great enjoyment it was, after so much thick and wet weather. We rose at half past four P.M., in the hopes of pursuing our journey; but, after hauling the boats to the edge of the floe, found such a quantity of loose, rugged ice to the northward of us, that there was no possibility, for the present, of getting across or through it. Observing a small opening at 10.30 P.M., we launched the boats, and hauled them across several pieces of ice, some of them being very light and much decayed. Our latitude, by the sun's meridian altitude at midnight, was 81° 23'; so that we had made only eight miles of northing since our last observation at noon on the 25th.

The 30th commenced with snowy and inclement weather, which soon rendered the atmosphere so thick that we could no longer see our way, obliging us to halt till two P.M., when we crossed several small pools with great labour and loss of time. We had generally very light ice this day, with some heavy, rugged pieces intermixed; and, when hauling across these, we had sometimes to cut with axes a passage for the boats among the hummocks. We also dragged them through a great many pools of fresh water, to avoid the necessity of going round them. The wind freshening up from the S.S.W., we afterward found the ice gradually more and more open, so that, in the course of the day, we made by rowing, though by a very winding channel, five miles of northing; but were again stopped by the ice soon after midnight, and obliged to haul up on the first mass that we could gain, the ice having so much motion that we narrowly escaped being "nipped." We set out at 11.30 A.M. on the 1st July, the wind still fresh from the S.W., and some snow falling: but it was more than an hour before we could get away from the small pieces of ice on which we slept, the masses beyond being so broken up and so much in motion, that we could not, at first, venture to launch the boats. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 81° 30' 41". After crossing several pieces, we at length got into a good "lead" of water, four or five miles in length; two or three of which, as on the preceding day, occurred under the lee of a floe, being the second we had yet seen that deserved that name. We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the pools of water that lay between them. The ice was now less broken up, and sometimes tolerably level; but from six to eighteen inches of soft snow lay upon it in every part, making the travelling very fatiguing, and obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three, journeys with our loads. We now found it absolutely necessary to lighten the boat as much as possible, by putting the bread-bags on the sledges, on account of the "runners" of the boats sinking so much deeper into the snow; but our bread ran a great risk of being wetted by this plan.

We halted at eleven P.M. on the 1st, having traversed from ten to eleven miles, and made good, by our account, seven and half in a N.b.W. direction. We again set forward at ten A.M. on the 2d, the weather being calm, and the sun oppressively warm, though with a thick fog. The temperature in the shade was 35° at noon, and only 47° in the sun; but this, together with the glare from the snow, produced so painful a sensation in most of our eyes, as to make it necessary to halt at one P.M., to avoid being blinded. We therefore took advantage of this warm weather to let the men wash themselves, and mend and dry their clothes, and then set out again at half past three. The snow was, however, so soft as to take us up to our knees at almost every other step, and frequently still deeper; so that we were sometimes five minutes together in moving a single empty boat, with all our united strength. It being impossible to proceed under these circumstances, I determined to fall into our night-travelling again, from which we had of late insensibly deviated. We therefore halted at half past five, the weather being now very clear and warm, and many of the people's eyes beginning to fail. We did not set out again till after midnight, with the intention of giving the snow time to harden after so warm a day; but we found it still so soft as to make the travelling very fatiguing. Our way lay at first across a number of loose pieces, most of which were from five to twenty yards apart, or just sufficiently separated to give us all the labour of launching and hauling up the boats, without the advantage of making any progress by water; while we crossed, in other instances, from mass to mass, by laying the boats over as bridges, by which the men and the baggage passed. By these means, we at length reached a floe about a mile in length, in a northern direction; but it would be difficult to convey an adequate idea of the labour required to traverse it. The average depth of snow upon the level parts was about five inches, under which lay water four or five inches deep; but, the moment we approached a hummock, the depth to which we sank increased to three feet or more, rendering it difficult at times to obtain sufficient footing for one leg to enable us to extricate the other. The pools of fresh water had now also become very large, some of them being a quarter of a mile in length, and their depth above our knees. Through these we were prevented taking the sledges, for fear of wetting all our provisions; but we preferred transporting the boats across them, notwithstanding the severe cold of the snow-water, the bottom being harder for the "runners" to slide upon. On this kind of road we were, in one instance, above two hours in proceeding a distance of one hundred yards.

We halted at half past six A.M. to dine; and to empty our boots and wring our stockings, which, to our feelings, was almost like putting on dry ones; and again set out in an hour, getting at length into a "lane" of water a mile and a quarter long, in a N.N.E. direction. We halted for the night at half an hour before midnight, the people being almost exhausted with a laborious day's work, and our distance made good to the northward not exceeding two miles and a quarter. We allowed ourselves this night a hot supper, consisting of a pint of soup per man, made of an ounce of pemmican each, and eight or ten birds, which we had killed in the course of the last week; and this was a luxury which persons thus situated could perhaps alone duly appreciate.

We rose and breakfasted at nine P.M.; but the weather had gradually become so inclement and thick, with snow, sleet, and a fresh breeze from the eastward, that we could neither have seen our way, nor have avoided getting wet through had we moved. We therefore remained under cover; and it was as well that we did so, for the snow soon after changed to heavy rain, and the wind increased to a fresh gale, which unavoidably detained us till 7.30 P.M. on the 4th. The rain had produced even a greater effect than the sun in softening the snow. Lieutenant Ross and myself, in performing our pioneering duty, were frequently so beset in it, that sometimes, after trying in vain to extricate our legs, we were obliged to sit quietly down for a short time to rest ourselves and then make another attempt; and the men, in dragging the sledges, were often under the necessity of crawling upon all-fours to make any progress at all. Nor would any kind of snow-shoes have been of the least service, but rather an encumbrance to us, for the surface was so irregular, that they would have thrown us down at every other step. We had hitherto made use of the Lapland shoes, or _kamoogas_, for walking in, which are excellent for dry snow; but there being now so much water upon the ice, we substituted the Esquimaux boots, which had been made in Greenland expressly for our use, and which are far superior to any others for this kind of travelling. Just before halting, at six A.M. on the 5th, the ice at the margin of the floe broke while the men were handing the provisions out of the boats; and we narrowly escaped the loss of a bag of cocoa, which fell overboard, but fortunately rested on a "tongue." The bag being made of Mackintosh's waterproof canvass, the cocoa did not suffer the slightest injury.

We rose at five P.M., the weather being clear and fine, with a moderate breeze from the south; no land was in sight from the highest hummocks, nor could we perceive anything but broken loose ice in any direction. We hauled across several pieces which were scarcely fit to bear the weight of the boats, and in such cases used the precaution of dividing our baggage, so that, in case of the ice breaking or turning over, we should not lose all at once. The farther we proceeded, the more the ice was broken; indeed, it was much more so here than we had found it since first entering the "pack." After stopping at midnight to dine and to obtain the meridian altitude, we passed over a floe full of hummocks, a mile and a half in length; but any kind of floe was relief to us after the constant difficulty we had experienced in passing over loose ice.

After several hours of very beautiful weather, a thick fog came on early on the morning of the 6th July, and at five A.M. we halted, having got to the end of the floe, and only made good two miles and a half to the northward. The fog continued very thick all day; but, being unwilling to stop on this account, we set out again at half past six in the evening, and passed over several small flat pieces with no great difficulty, but with much loss of time in launching and hauling up the boats. Towards the end of our day's journey, we landed on the only really level floe we had yet met with. It was, however, only three quarters of a mile in length, but, being almost clear of snow, afforded such good travelling, that, although much fatigued at the time, we hauled the boats and all the baggage across it at one journey, at the rate of about two miles an hour, and halted at the northern margin at five A.M. on the 7th. The prospect beyond was still very unfavourable, and at eight in the evening, when we again launched the boats, there was not a piece of large or level ice to be seen in a northern direction.

We halted at six A.M. on the 8th, in time to avoid a great deal of rain which fell during the day, and again proceeded on our journey at eight in the evening, the wind being fresh from the E.S.E., with thick, wet weather. We now met with detached ice of a still lighter kind than before, the only floe in sight being much to the eastward of our course. This we reached after considerable labour, in the hope of its leading to the northward, which it did for about one mile, and we then came to the same kind of loose ice as before. On the morning of the 9th July, we enjoyed the indescribable comfort of two or three hours' clear, dry weather, but had scarcely hung up our wet clothes, after halting at five A.M., when it again came on to rain; but, as everything was as wet as it could be, we left them out to take their chance. The rain continued most of the day, but we set out at half past seven P.M., crossing loose ice, as usual, and much of the surface consisting of detached vertical needles. After an hour, the rain became so heavy that we halted to save our shirts, which were the only dry clothes' belonging to us. Soon after midnight, the rain being succeeded by one of the thickest fogs I ever saw, we again proceeded, groping our way almost yard by yard from one small piece of ice to another, and were very fortunate in hitting upon some with level surfaces, and also a few tolerable-sized holes of water. At half past two we reached a floe which appeared at first a level and large one; but, on landing, we were much mortified to find it so covered with immense ponds, or, rather, small lakes of fresh water, that, to accomplish two miles in a north direction, we were under the necessity of walking from three to four, the water being too deep for wading, and from two hundred yards to one third of a mile in length. We halted at six A.M., having made only one mile and three quarters in a N.N.W. direction, the wind still blowing fresh from the eastward, with a thick fog. We were in latitude 82° 3' 19", and longitude, by chronometers, 23° 17' E., and we found the variation of the magnetic needle to be 13° 41' westerly. We moved again at seven P.M., with the weather nearly as foggy as before, our road lying across a very hummocky floe, on which we had considerable difficulty in getting the boats, the ice being extremely unfavourable both for launching and hauling them up. After stopping an hour at midnight to dine, we were again annoyed by a heavy fall of rain, a phenomenon almost as new to us in these regions until this summer, as it was harassing and unhealthy. Being anxious, however, to take advantage of a lane of water that seemed to lead northerly, we launched the boats, and by the time that we had crossed it, which gave us only half a mile of northing, the rain had become much harder, and our outer clothes, bread bags, and boats were thoroughly wet. After this we had better travelling on the ice, and also crossed one or two larger holes of water than we had met with for a long time, and halted for our night's rest at half past seven A.M., after nearly twelve hours' hard, but not altogether unsuccessful labour, having traversed about twelve miles, and made good by our account, seven and a half, in a N.W.b.N. direction. The rain ceased soon after we had halted, but was succeeded, by a thick, wet fog, which obliged us, when we continued our journey, to put on our travelling clothes in the same dripping state as when we took them off. The wind continued fresh from the southeastward, and at nine P.M. the weather suddenly cleared up, and gave us once more the inconceivably cheering, I had almost said the blessed, sight of a blue sky, with hard, well-defined white clouds floating across it. We halted at six A.M., after making, by our day's exertions, only three miles and a half of northing, our latitude at this time being 82° 14' 28", and our longitude, by chronometers, 22° 4' E. The thermometer was from 35° to 36° in the shade during most of the day, and this, with a clear sky over head, was now absolute luxury to us. Setting out again at seven P.M., we crossed a small lane of water to another floe; but this was so intersected by ponds, and by streams running into the sea, that we had to make a very circuitous route, some of the ponds being half-a mile in length. Notwithstanding the immense quantity of water still upon the ice, and which always afforded us a pure and abundant supply of this indispensable article, we now observed a mark round the banks of all the ponds, showing that the water was less deep in them, by several inches, than it had been somewhat earlier in the summer; and, indeed, from about this time, some small diminution in its quantity began to be perceptible to ourselves. We halted for our resting-time at six A.M. on the 13th, having gained only two miles and a half of northing, over a road of about four, and this accomplished by ten hours of fatiguing exertion. We were here in latitude, by the noon observation, 82° 17' 10", and could find no bottom with four hundred fathoms of line. We launched the boats at seven in the evening, the wind being moderate from the E.S.E., with fine, clear weather, and were still mortified in finding that no improvement took place in the road over which we had to travel; for the ice now before us was, if possible, more broken up and more difficult to pass over than ever. Much of it was also so thin as to be extremely dangerous for the provisions; and it was often a nervous thing to see our whole means of existence lying on a decayed sheet, having holes quite through it in many parts, and which the smallest motion among the surrounding masses might have instantly broken into pieces. There was, however, no choice, except between this road and the more rugged though safer hummocks, which cost ten times the labour to pass over. Mounting one of the highest of these at nine P.M., we could discover nothing to the north, ward but the same broken and irregular surface; and we now began to doubt whether we should at all meet with the solid fields of unbroken ice which every account had led us to expect in a much lower latitude than this. A very strong, yellow ice-blink overspread the whole northern horizon.

We stopped to dine at half an hour past midnight, after more than five hours unceasing labour, in the course of which time we had only accomplished a mile and a half due north, though we had traversed from three to four, and walked at least ten, having made three journeys a great part of the way. We had launched and hauled up the boats four times, and dragged them over twenty-five separate pieces of ice. After dinner we continued the same kind of travelling, which was, beyond all description, harrassing to the officers and men. In crossing from mass to mass, several of which were separated about half the length of our sledges, the officers were stationed at the most difficult places to see that no precaution, was omitted which could ensure the safety of the provisions. Only one individual was allowed to jump over at a time, or to stand near either margin, for fear of the weight being too great for it; and when three or four men had separately crossed, the sledge was cautiously drawn up to the edge, and the word being given, the men suddenly ran away with the ropes, so as to allow no time for its falling in if the ice should break. Having at length succeeded in reaching a small floe, we halted at half past six A.M., much wearied by nearly eleven hours' exertion, by which we had only advanced three miles and a half in a N.N.W. direction. We rose at six P.M., and prepared to set out, but it rained so hard and so incessantly that it would have been impossible to move without a complete drenching. It held up a little at five, and at six we set out; but the rain soon recommenced, though less heavily than before. At eight the rain again became heavier, and we got under shelter of our awnings for a quarter of an hour, to keep our shirts and other flannel clothes dry; these being the only things we now had on which were not thoroughly wet. At nine we did the same, but before ten were obliged to halt altogether, the rain coming down in torrents, and the men being much exhausted by continued wet and cold, though the thermometer was at 36°, which was somewhat above our usual temperature. At half past seven P.M. we again pursued our journey, and, after much laborious travelling, we were fortunate, considering the fog, in hitting upon a floe which proved the longest we had yet crossed, being three miles from south to north, though alternately rugged and flat. From this we launched into a lane of water half a mile long from east to west, but which only gave us a hundred and fifty yards of northing.

The floe on which we stopped to dine, at one A.M. on the 16th, was not more than four feet thick, and its extent half a mile square; and on this we had the rare advantage of carrying all our loads at one journey. At half past six the fog cleared away, and gave us beautiful weather for drying our clothes, and once more the cheerful sight of the blue sky. We halted at half past seven, after being twelve hours on the road, having made a N.b.W. course, distance only six miles and a quarter, though we had traversed nine miles. We saw, during this last journey, a mallemucke and a second Ross gull: and a couple of small flies (to us an event of ridiculous importance) were found upon the ice.

We again pursued our way at seven in the evening, having the unusual comfort of putting on dry stockings, and the no less rare luxury of delightfully pleasant weather, the wind being moderate from the S.S.E. It was so warm in the sun, though the temperature in the shade was only 35°, that the tar was running out of the seams of the boats; and a blackened bulb held against the paint-work raised the thermometer to 72°. The floes were larger to-day, and the ice, upon the whole, of heavier dimensions than any we had yet met with. The general thickness of the floes, however, did not exceed nine or ten feet, which is not more than the usual thickness of those in Baffin's Bay and Hudson's Strait.

The 17th of July being one of the days on which the Royal Society of Edinburgh have proposed to institute a series of simultaneous meteorological observations, we commenced an hourly register of every phenomenon which came under our notice, and which our instruments and other circumstances would permit, and continued most of them throughout the day. Our latitude, observed at noon, was 82° 32' 10", being more than a mile to the southward of the reckoning, though the wind had been constantly from that quarter during the twenty-four hours.

After midnight the road became, if possible, worse, and the prospect to the northward more discouraging than before; nothing but loose and very small pieces of ice being in sight, over which the boats were dragged almost entirely by a "standing-pull." The men were so exhausted with their day's work, that it was absolutely necessary to give them something hot for supper, and we again served a little cocoa for that purpose. They were also put into good spirits by our having killed a small seal, which, the following night, gave us an excellent supper. The meat of these young animals is tender, and free from oiliness; but it certainly has a smell and a look which would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like ourselves. We also considered it a great prize on account of its blubber, which gave us fuel sufficient for cooking six hot messes for our whole party, though the animal only weighed thirty pounds in the whole.

Setting out at half past seven in the evening, we found the sun more distressing to the eyes than we had ever yet had it, bidding defiance to our crape veils and wire-gauze eye-shades;[022] but a more effectual screen was afforded by the sun becoming clouded about nine P.M. At half past nine we came to a very difficult crossing among the loose ice, which, however, we were encouraged to attempt by seeing a floe of some magnitude beyond it. We had to convey the sledges and provisions one way, and to haul the boats over by another. One of the masses over which the boats came began to roll about while one of them was upon it, giving us reason to apprehend its upsetting, which must have been attended with some very serious consequence: fortunately, however, it retained its equilibrium long enough to allow us to get the boat past it in safety, not without several of the men falling overboard, in consequence of the long jumps we had to make, and the edges breaking with their weight.

On the morning of the 20th we came to a good deal of ice, which formed a striking contrast with the other, being composed of flat bay-floes, not three feet thick, which would have afforded us good travelling had they not recently been broken into small pieces, obliging us to launch frequently from one to another. These floes had been the product of the last winter only, having probably been formed in some of the interstices left between the larger bodies; and, from what we saw of them, there could be little doubt of their being all dissolved before the next autumnal frost. We halted at seven A.M., having, by our reckoning, accomplished six miles and a half in a N.N.W. direction, the distance traversed being ten miles and a half. It may therefore be imagined how great was our mortification in finding that our latitude, by observation at noon, was only 82° 36' 52", being less than _five_ miles to the northward of our place at noon on the 17th, since which time we had certainly travelled _twelve_ in that direction.

At five A.M. on the 21st, having gone ahead, as usual, upon a bay-floe, to search for the best road, I heard a more than ordinary noise and bustle among the people who were bringing up the boats behind. On returning to them, I found that we had narrowly, and most providentially, escaped a serious calamity; the floe having broken under the weight of the boats and sledges, and the latter having nearly been lost through the ice. Some of the men went completely through, and one of them was only held up by his drag-belt being attached to a sledge which happened to be on firmer ice. Fortunately the bread had, by way of security, been kept in the boats, or this additional weight would undoubtedly have sunk the sledges, and probably some of the men with them. As it was, we happily escaped, though we hardly knew how, with a good deal of wetting; and, cautiously approaching the boats, drew them to a stronger part of the ice, after which we continued our journey till half past six A.M., when we halted to rest, having travelled about seven miles N.N.W., our longitude by chronometers being 19° 52' east, and the latitude 82° 39' 10", being only two miles and a quarter to the northward of the preceding day's observation, or four miles and a half to the southward of our reckoning.

Our sportsmen had the good fortune to kill another seal to-day, rather larger than the first, which again proved a most welcome addition to our provisions and fuel. Indeed, after this supply of the latter, we were enabled to allow ourselves every night a pint of warm water for supper, each man making his own soup from such a portion of his bread and pemmican as he could save from dinner. Setting out again at seven in the evening, we were not sorry to find the weather quite calm, which sailors account "half a fair wind;" for it was now evident that nothing but a southerly breeze could enable us to make any tolerable progress, or to regain what we had lately lost.

Our travelling to-night was the very best we had during this excursion; for though we had to launch and haul up the boats frequently, an operation which, under the most favourable circumstances, necessarily occupies much time, yet the floes being large and tolerably level, and some good lanes of water occurring, we made, according to the most moderate calculation, between ten and eleven miles in a N.N.E. direction, and traversed a distance of about seventeen. We halted at a quarter past eight A.M. after more than twelve hours' actual travelling, by which the people were extremely fatigued; but, while our work seemed to be repaid by anything like progress, the men laboured with great cheerfulness to the utmost of their strength. The ice over which we had travelled was by far the largest and heaviest we met with during our whole journey; this, indeed, was the only occasion on which we saw anything answering in the slightest degree to the descriptions given of the main ice. The largest floe was from two and a half to three miles square, and in some places the thickness of the ice was from 15 to 20 feet. However, it was a satisfaction to observe that the ice had certainly improved; and we now ventured to hope that, for the short time that we could still pursue our outward journey, our progress would be more commensurate with our exertions than it had hitherto proved. In proportion, then, to the hopes we had begun to entertain, was our disappointment in finding, at noon, that we were in latitude 82° 43' 5", or not quite four miles to the northward of yesterday's observation, instead of the ten or eleven which we had travelled! We halted at seven A.M. on the 23d, after a laborious day's work, and, I must confess, a disheartening one to those who knew to how little effect we were struggling; which, however, the men did not, though they often laughingly remarked that "we were a long time getting to this 83°!" Being anxious to make up, in some measure, for the drift which the present northerly wind was in all probability occasioning, we rose earlier than usual, and set off at half past four in the evening. At half past five P.M. we saw a very beautiful natural phenomenon. A broad white fog-bow first appeared opposite the sun, as was very commonly the case; presently it became strongly tinged with, the prismatic colours, and soon afterward no less than five other complete arches were formed within the main bow, the interior ones being gradually narrower than those without, but the whole of them beautifully coloured. The larger bow, and the one next within it, had the red on the outer or upper part of the circle, the others on the inner side.

We halted at a quarter past three on the morning of the 24th, having made four miles and a half N.N.E., over a road of about seven and a half, most of which we traversed, as usual, three times. We moved again at four P.M. over a difficult road, composed of small and rugged ice. So small was the ice now around us, that we were obliged to halt for the night at two A.M. on the 25th, being upon the only piece in sight, in any direction, on which we could venture to trust the boats while we rested. Such was the ice in the latitude of 82-3/4°.

The wind had now got round to the W.N.W., with raw, foggy weather, and continued to blow fresh all day. Snow came on soon after our halting, and about two inches had fallen when we moved again at half past four P.M. We continued our journey in this inclement weather for three hours, hauling from piece to piece, and not making more than three quarters of a mile progress, till our clothes and bread-bags had become very wet, and the snow fell so thick that we could no longer see our way. It was therefore necessary to halt, which we did at half past seven, putting the awnings over the boats, changing our wet clothes, and giving the men employment for the mere sake of occupying their minds. The weather improving towards noon on the 26th, we obtained the meridian altitude of the sun, by which we found ourselves in latitude 82° 40' 23"; so that, since our last observation (at midnight on the 22d), we had lost by drift no less than thirteen miles and a half; for we were now more than three miles to the _southward_ of that observation, though we had certainly travelled between ten and eleven due north in this interval! Again, we were but one mile to the north of our place at noon on the 21st, though we had estimated our distance made good at twenty-three miles. Thus it appeared that for the last five days we had been struggling against a southerly drift exceeding four miles per day.

It had, for some time past, been too evident that the nature of the ice with which we had to contend was such, and its drift to the southward, especially with a northerly wind, so great, as to put beyond our reach anything but a very moderate share of success in travelling to the northward. Still, however, we had been anxious to reach the highest latitude which our means would allow, and with this view, although our whole object had long become unattainable, had pushed on to the northward for thirty-five days, or until half our resources were expended, and the middle of our season arrived. For the last few days the eighty-third parallel was the limit to which we had ventured to extend our hopes; but even this expectation had become considerably weakened since the setting in of the last northerly wind, which continued to drive us to the southward, during the necessary hours of rest, nearly as much as we could gain by eleven or twelve hours of daily labour. Had our success been at all proportionate to our exertions, it was my full intention to proceed a few days beyond the middle of the period for which we were provided, trusting to the resources we expected to find at Table Island. But I could not but consider it as incurring useless fatigue to the officers and men, and unnecessary wear and tear for the boats, to persevere any longer in the attempt. I determined, therefore, on giving the people one entire day's rest, which they very much needed, and time to wash and mend their clothes, while the officers were occupied in making all the observations which might be interesting in this latitude; and then to set out on our return on the following day. Having communicated my intentions to the people, who were all much disappointed at finding how little their labours had effected, we set about our respective occupations, and were much favoured by a remarkably fine day.

The highest latitude we reached was probably at seven A.M. on the 23d, when, after the midnight observation, we travelled, by our account, something more than a mile and a half, which would carry us a little beyond 82° 45'. Some observations for the magnetic intensity were obtained at this station. We here found no bottom with five hundred fathoms of line. At the extreme point of our journey, our distance from the Hecla was only 172 miles in a S. 8° W. direction. To accomplish this distance, we had traversed, by our reckoning, 292 miles, of which about 100 were performed by water, previous to our entering the ice. As we travelled by far the greater part of our distance on the ice three, and not unfrequently five, times over, we may safely multiply the length of the road by two and a half; so that our whole distance, on a very moderate calculation, amounted to 580 geographical or 668 statute miles, being nearly sufficient to have reached the Pole in a direct line.

Our day of rest (27th of July) proved one of the warmest and most pleasant to the feelings we had yet had upon the ice, though the thermometer was only from 31° to 36° in the shade, and 37° in the sun, with occasional fog; but to persons in the open air, calm and tolerably dry weather affords absolute enjoyment, especially by contrast with what we had lately experienced. Our ensigns and pendants were displayed during the day; and, sincerely as we regretted not having been able to hoist the British flag in the highest latitude to which we had aspired, we shall perhaps be excused in having felt some little pride in being the bearers of it to a parallel considerably beyond that mentioned in any other well-authenticated record.

At 4.30 P.M. on the 27th, we set out on our return to the southward, and I can safely say that, dreary and cheerless as were the scenes we were about to leave, we never turned homeward with so little satisfaction as on this occasion. To afford a chance of determining the general set of the current from this latitude, we left upon a hummock of ice a paper, sewn up in a water-proof canvass bag, and then enclosed in a water-tight tin canister, giving an account of the place where it was deposited, and requesting any person who should find it to send it to the secretary of the admiralty. Nothing worthy of particular notice occurred on this and the following day, on each of which we travelled eleven hours; finding the water somewhat more open and the floes less rugged than usual. Two of these were from two to three miles in length, and in one instance the surface was sufficiently level to allow us to drag the boats for three quarters of a mile with the sledges _in tow_. Our latitude, observed at noon of the 30th, was 82° 20' 37", or twelve miles and a half to the southward of the preceding day's observation, though we had travelled only seven by our account; so that the drift of the ice had assisted us in gaining five miles and a half in that interval.

Setting out to continue our journey at five P.M., we could discover nothing from a high hummock but the kind of bay-ice before noticed, except on the floe on which we had slept. The travelling was very laborious, but we were obliged to go on till we could get to a secure floe for resting upon, which we could not effect till half past four on the 31st, when, in eleven hours and a half, we had not made more than two miles and a quarter of southing. However, we had the satisfaction, which was denied us on our outward journey, of feeling confident that we should keep all that we gained, and probably make a good deal more; which, indeed, proved to be the case, for at noon we found our latitude, by observation, to be 82° 14' 25", or four miles to the southward of the reckoning.

We halted at five A.M. on the 1st of August, the officers and men being quite knocked up, and having made by our account only two miles of southing over a road not less than five in length. As we came along we had seen some recent bear-tracks, and soon after discovered Bruin himself. Halting the boats and concealing the people behind them, we drew him almost within gun-shot; but, after making a great many traverses behind some hummocks, and even mounting one of them to examine us more narrowly, he set off and escaped--I must say, to our grievous disappointment; for we had already, by anticipation, consigned a tolerable portion of his flesh to our cooking kettle, over a fire of his own blubber.

In the course of our journey, on the 2d of August, we met with a quantity of snow, tinged, to the depth of several inches, with some red colouring matter, of which a portion was preserved in a bottle for future examination. This circumstance recalled to our recollection our having frequently before, in the course of this journey, remarked that the loaded sledges, in passing over hard snow, left upon it a light, rose-coloured tint, which, at the time, we attributed to the colouring matter being pressed out of the birch of which they were made. Today, however, we observed that the runners of the, boats, and even our own footsteps, exhibited the same appearance; and, on watching it more narrowly afterward, we found the same effect to be produced, in a greater or less degree, by heavy pressure, on almost all the ice over which we passed, though a magnifying glass could detect nothing to give it this tinge. Halting at seven A.M. on the 3d, after launching and hauling up the boats a great number of times, we had not only the comfort of drying all our wet clothes, but were even able to wash many of our woollen things, which dried in a few hours. The latitude observed at noon was 82° 1' 48", or twelve miles and a half, to the southward of our place on the 31st, which was about three more than our log gave, though there had been southing in the wind during the whole interval.

We proceeded on our journey southward at eight P.M., and were again favoured with a clear and beautiful night, though the travelling was as slow and laborious as ever, there being scarcely a tolerable floe lying in our road. The sun now became so much lower at night, that we were seldom annoyed by the glare from the snow. It was also a very comfortable change to those who had to look out for the road, to have the sun behind us instead of facing it, as on our outward journey. We stopped to rest at a quarter past six A.M. on the 4th, after accomplishing three miles in a south direction, over a troublesome road of nearly twice that length. It was almost calm, and to our feelings oppressively warm during the day, the thermometer within the boats rising as high as 66°, which put our fur dresses nearly "out of commission," though the mercury exposed to the sun outside did not rise above 39°. Pursuing our journey at eight P.M., we paid, as usual, for this comfort by the extreme softness of the snow. The upper crust would sometimes support a man's weight for a short time, and then suddenly let him down two or three feet, so that we could never make sure of our footing for two steps together. Several of the men were also suffering much at this time from chilblains, which, from the constant wet and cold, as well as the irritation in walking, became serious sores, keeping them quite lame. With many of our people, also, the epidermis or scarfskin peeled off in large flakes, not merely in the face and hands, which were exposed to the action of the sun and the weather, but in every other part of the body; this, however, was attended with no pain, nor with much inconvenience.

A fat bear crossed over a lane of water to visit us, and, approaching the boats within twenty yards, was killed by Lieutenant Ross. The scene which followed was laughable, even to us who participated in it. Before the animal had done biting the snow, one of the men was alongside of him with an open knife; and, being asked what he was about to do, replied that he was about cut out his heart and liver to put into the pot, which happened to be then boiling for our supper. In short, before the bear had been dead an hour, all hands of us were employed, to our great satisfaction, in discussing the merits, not only of the said heart and liver, but a pound per man of the flesh; besides which, some or other of the men were constantly frying steaks during the whole day, over a large fire made of the blubber. The consequence of all this, and other similar indulgences, necessarily was, that some of them complained, for several days after, of the pains usually arising from indigestion; though they all, amusingly enough, attributed this effect to the quality, and not the quantity of meat they had eaten. However, notwithstanding these excesses at first, we were really thankful for this additional supply of meat; for we had observed for some time past, that the men were evidently not so strong as before, and would be the better for more sustenance.

The rain continued so hard at our usual time of setting out, that I was obliged to delay doing so till six P.M. on the 8th, when it ceased a little, after falling hard for twenty-four hours, and less violently for twelve more. When we first launched the boats, our prospect of making progress seemed no better than usual, but we found one small hole of water leading into another in so extraordinary a manner, that, though the space in which we were rowing seemed always to be coming to an end, we continued to creep through narrow passages, and, when we halted to dine at half an hour before midnight, had only hauled the boats up once, and had made, though by a winding channel, four or five miles of southing. This was so unusual a circumstance, that we could not help entertaining some hope of our being at no great distance from the open sea, which seemed the more probable from our having seen seven or eight narwhals, and not less than two hundred rotges, a flock of these little birds occurring in every hole of water. At noon on the 10th of August, we observed in latitude 81° 40' 13", which was only four miles to the northward of our reckoning from the last observation, although there had been almost constantly southing in the wind ever since, and it had been blowing strong from that quarter for the last thirty hours. This circumstance afforded a last and striking proof of the general tendency of the ice to drift southward, about the meridians on which we had been travelling. Another bear came towards the boats in the course of the day, and was killed. We were now so abundantly supplied with meat, that the men would again have eaten immoderately had we not interposed the necessary authority to prevent them. As it was, our encampment became so like an Esquimaux establishment, that we were obliged to shift our place upon the floe in the course of the day, for the sake of cleanliness and comfort.

The wind falling towards midnight, we launched the boats at half past one A.M. on the 11th, paddling alternately in large spaces of clear water and among streams of loose "sailing ice." We soon afterward observed such indications of an open sea as could not be mistaken, much of the ice being "washed" as by a heavy sea, with small rounded fragments thrown on the surface, and a good deal of "dirty ice" occurring. After passing through a good deal of loose ice, it became gradually more and more open, till at length, at a quarter before seven A.M., we heard the first sound of the swell under the hollow margins of the ice, and in a quarter of an hour had reached the open sea, which was dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses. We hauled the boats upon one of these, to eat our last meal upon the ice, and to complete the necessary supply of water for our little voyage to Table Island, from which we were now distant fifty miles, our latitude being 81° 34', and longitude 18-1/4° E. A light air springing up from the N.W., we again launched the boats, and at eight A.M. finally quitted the ice, after having taken up our abode upon it for forty-eight days.

We had some fog during the night, so that we steered entirely by compass, according to our last observations by the chronometers, which proved so correct, that, at five A.M. on the 12th, on the clearing up of the haze, we made the island right ahead. At eleven A.M. we reached the island, or rather the rock to the northward of it, where our provisions had been deposited; and I cannot describe the comfort we experienced in once more feeling a dry and solid footing. We found that the bears had devoured all the bread (one hundred pounds), which occasioned a remark among the men, with reference to the quantity of these animals' flesh that we had eaten, that "Bruin was only square with us." We also found that Lieutenant Crozier had been here since we left the island, bringing some materials for repairing our boats, as well as various little luxuries to which we had lately been strangers, and depositing in a copper cylinder a letter from Lieutenant Foster, giving me a detailed account of the proceedings of the ship up to the 23d of July. By this I learned that the Hecla had been forced on shore on the 7th of July, by the breaking-up of the ice at the head of the bay, which came down upon her in one solid mass; but, by the unwearied and zealous exertions of the officers and men, she had again been hove off without incurring the slightest damage, and placed in perfect security. Among the supplies with which the anxious care of our friends on board had now furnished us, some lemon-juice and sugar were not the least acceptable; two or three of the men having for some days past suffered from oedematous swellings of the legs, and evinced other symptoms apparently scorbutic, but which soon improved after administering this valuable specific.

Having got our stores into the boats, we rowed round Table Island to look for a place on which to rest, the men being much fatigued; but so rugged and inhospitable is this northern rock, that not a single spot could we find where the boats could possibly be hauled up, or lie afloat in security. I therefore determined to take advantage of the freshening of the N.E. wind, and to bear up for Walden Island, which we accordingly did at two P.M. We had scarcely made, sail when the weather became extremely inclement, with a fresh gale and very thick snow, which obscured Walden Island from our view. Steering by compass, however, we made a good landfall, the boats behaving well in a sea; and at seven P.M. landed in the smoothest place we could find under the lee of the island. Everything belonging to us was now completely drenched by the spray and snow; we had been fifty-six hours without rest, and forty-eight at work in the boats, so that, by the time they were unloaded, we had barely strength left to haul them up on the rock. We noticed, on this occasion, that the men had that wildness in their looks which usually accompanies excessive fatigue; and, though just as willing as ever to obey orders, they seemed at times not to comprehend them. However, by dint of great exertion, we managed to get the boats above the surf; after which, a hot supper, a blazing fire of driftwood, and a few hours' quiet rest, quite restored us.

The next morning, the 13th, I despatched Lieutenant Ross, with a party of hands, to the N.E. part of the island, to launch the spare boat, which, according to my directions, Lieutenant Foster had sent for our use, and to bring round the stores deposited there in readiness for our setting off for Low Island. They found everything quite undisturbed; but, by the time they reached us, the wind had backed to the westward, and the weather become very wet, so that I determined to remain here till it improved.

At ten A.M. on the 14th, the weather being fine, we launched our three boats and left Walden Island; but the wind backing more to the westward, we could only fetch into a bay on the opposite or southern shore, where we hauled the boats up on very rugged rocks, under cliffs about six hundred feet high, and of the same granite formation as Walden Island.

The wind dying away on the morning of the 17th, we once more set out for the ship at nine A.M.; but having a second time nearly reached Shoal Point, were again met by a strong breeze as we opened Waygatz Strait, and were therefore obliged to land upon the low shore to the southward of Low Island.

On the 18th of August the wind increased to a strong breeze from the S.W., with rain and sleet, which afterward changed to snow in some of the largest flakes I ever saw, completely changing the whole aspect of the land from summer to winter in a few hours. On the following morning we prepared to move at an early hour, but the wind backed more to the westward, and soon after increased to a gale, raising so much surf on the beach as to oblige us to haul the boats higher up. On the 20th, tired as we were of this tedious confinement, and anxious to reach the ship, the wind and sea were still too high to allow us to move, and it was not till half past seven A.M. on the following day that we could venture to launch the boats. Having now, by means of the driftwood, converted our paddles into oars, and being occasionally favoured by a light breeze, with a perfectly open sea, we made tolerable progress, and at half past four P.M. on the 21st of August, when within three or four miles of Hecla Cove, had the gratification of seeing a boat under sail coming out to meet us. Mr. Weir soon joined us in one of the cutters; and, after hearing good accounts of the safety of the ship, and of the welfare of all on board, together with a variety of details, to us of no small interest, we arrived on board at seven P.M., after an absence of sixty-one days, being received with that warm and cordial welcome which can alone be felt, and not described.

I cannot conclude the account of our proceedings without endeavouring to do justice to the cheerful alacrity and unwearied zeal displayed by my companions, both officers and men, in the course of this excursion; and if steady perseverance and active exertion on their parts could have accomplished our object, success would undoubtedly have crowned our labours. I must also mention, to the credit of the officers of Woolwich dock-yard, who took so much pains in the construction of our boats, that, notwithstanding the constant and severe trial to which their strength had been put--and a more severe trial could not well be devised--not a timber was sprung, a plank split, or the smallest injury sustained by them; they were, indeed, as tight and as fit for service when we reached the ship as when they were first received on board, and in every respect answered the intended purpose admirably.

* * * * *

On my arrival on board, I learned from Lieutenant Crozier that Lieutenant Foster, finding that no farther disturbance from ice was to be apprehended, and after making an accurate plan of the bay and its neighbourhood, had proceeded on the survey of Waygatz Strait, and proposed returning by the 26th of August, the day to which I had limited his absence. I found the ship quite ready for sea, with the exception of getting on board the launch, with the stores deposited by my direction on the beach. Lieutenant Foster's report informed me that, after the ship had been hauled off the ground, they had again suffered considerable disturbance for several days, in consequence of some heavy masses of ice driving into the bay, which dragged the anchors, and again threatened them with a similar accident. However, after the middle of July, no ice had entered the bay, and, what is still more remarkable, not a piece had been seen in the offing for some weeks past, even after hard northerly and westerly gales.

On the 22d of August, as soon as our people had enjoyed a good night's rest, we commenced bringing the stores on board from the beach, throwing out such a quantity of the stone ballast as was necessary for trimming the ship; after which the cables and hawsers were cast off from the shore, and the ship hauled off to single anchor. Lieutenant Foster returned on board on the 24th, having surveyed the greater part of the shores of the strait, as far to the southward as 79° 33".

Lieutenant Foster saw some seahorses (narwhals) and white whales in the course of this excursion, but no black whales; nor did we, in the whole course of the voyage, see any of these, except on the ground already frequented by our whalers on the western coast of Spitzbergen. It is remarkable, however, that the "crown-bones," and other parts of the skeleton of whales, are found in most parts where we landed on this coast. The shores of the strait, like all the rest in Spitzbergen, are lined with immense quantities of driftwood, wherever the nature of the coast will allow it to land.

The animals met with here during the Hecla's stay were principally reindeer, bears, foxes, kittiwakes, glaucus and ivory gulls, tern, eider-ducks, and a few grouse. Looms and rotges were numerous in the offing. Seventy reindeer were killed, chiefly very small, and, until the middle of August, not in good condition. They were usually met with in herds of from six or eight to twenty, and were most abundant on the west and north sides of the bay. Three bears were killed, one of which was somewhat above the ordinary dimensions, measuring eight feet four inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail. The vegetation was tolerably abundant, especially on the western side of the bay, where the soil is good; a considerable collection of plants, as well as minerals, was made by Mr. Halse, and of birds by Mr. M'Cormick.

The neighbourhood of this bay, like most of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, appears to have been much visited by the Dutch at a very early period; of which circumstance records are furnished on almost every spot where we landed, by the numerous graves which we met with. There are thirty of these on a point of land on the north side of the bay.[023] The bodies are usually deposited in an oblong wooden coffin, which, on account of the difficulty of digging the ground, is not buried, but merely covered by large stones; and a board is generally placed near the head, having, either cut or painted upon it, the name of the deceased, with those of his ship and commander, and the month and year of his burial. Several of these were fifty or sixty years old; one bore the date of 1738; and another, which I found on the beach to the eastward of Hecla Cove, that of 1690; the inscription distinctly appearing in prominent relief, occasioned by the preservation of the wood by the paint, while the unpainted part had decayed around it.

The officers who remained on board the Hecla during the summer described the weather as the most beautiful, and the climate altogether the most agreeable, they had ever experienced in the Polar Regions. Indeed, the Meteorological Journal shows a temperature, both of the air and of the sea water, to which we had before been altogether strangers within the Arctic Circle, and which goes far towards showing that the climate of Spitzbergen is a remarkably temperate one for its latitude.[024] It must, however, be observed, that this remark is principally applicable to the weather experienced _near the land_, that at sea being rendered of a totally different character by the almost continual presence of fogs; so that some of our most gloomy days upon the ice were among the finest in Hecla Cove, where, however, a good deal of rain fell in the course of the summer.

The Hecla was ready for sea on the 25th of August; but the wind blowing fresh from the northward and westward prevented our moving till the evening of the 28th, when, the weather improving, we got under way from Hecla Cove, and, being favoured with a light air from the S.E., stood along the coast to the westward. On the evening of the 29th, when off Red Beach, we got on board our boat and other stores which had been left there, finding them undisturbed and in good order. The weather was beautifully fine, and the sun (to us for the first time for about four months) just dipped his lower limb into the sea at midnight, and then rose again. It was really wonderful to see that, upon this whole northern coast of Spitzbergen, where in May and June not a "hole" of clear water could be found, it would now have been equally difficult to discover a single mass of ice in any direction. This absence of ice now enabled us to see Moffen Island, which is so low and flat that it was before entirely hidden from our view by the hummocks. On rounding Hakluyt's Headland on the 30th, we came at once into a long swell, such as occurs only in places exposed to the whole range of the ocean, and, except a small or loose stream or two, we after this saw no more ice of any kind. On the 31st we were off Prince Charles's Foreland, the middle part of which, about Cape Sietoe, appeared to be much the highest land we had seen in Spitzbergen; rising probably to an elevation of above four thousand feet.

We had favourable winds to carry us clear of Spitzbergen; but after the 3d of September, and between the parallels of 70° and 60°, were detained by continual southerly and southwesterly breezes for a fortnight. On the evening of the 17th we made Shetland, and on the following day, being close off Balta Sound, and the wind blowing strong from the S.W., I anchored in the Voe at two P.M., to wait a more favourable breeze. We were here received by all that genuine hospitality for which the inhabitants of this northern part of the British dominions are so justly distinguished, and we gladly availed ourselves of the supplies with which their kindness furnished us.

Early on the morning of the 19th of September, the wind suddenly shifted to the N.N.W., and almost immediately blew so strong a gale that we could not safely cast the ship until the evening, when we got under way and proceeded to the southward; but had not proceeded farther than Fair Island, when, after a few hours' calm, we were once more met by a southerly wind. Against this we continued to beat till the morning of the 23d, when, finding that we made but little progress, and that there was no appearance of an alteration of wind, I determined to put into Long Hope, in the Orkney Islands, to await a change in our favour, and accordingly ran in and anchored there as soon as the tide would permit.

We found lying here his majesty's revenue cutter the Chichester; and Mr. Stuart, her commander, who was bound direct to Inverness, came on board as soon as we had anchored, to offer his services in any manner which might be useful. The wind died away in the course of the night of the 24th, and was succeeded on the following morning by a light air from the northward, when we immediately got under way; but had not entered the Pentland Firth, when it again fell calm and then backed to the southward, rendering it impossible to make any progress in that direction with a dull-sailing ship. I therefore determined on returning with the Hecla to the anchorage, and then taking advantage of Mr. Stuart's offer; and accordingly left the ship at eight A.M., accompanied by Mr. Beverly, to proceed to Inverness in the Chichester, and from thence by land to London, in order to lay before his royal highness the lord high admiral, without farther delay, an account of our proceedings. By the zealous exertions of Mr. Stuart, for which I feel greatly obliged to that gentleman, we arrived off Fort George the following morning, and, landing at Inverness at noon, immediately set off for London, and arrived at the Admiralty on the morning of the 29th of September.

Owing to the continuance of southerly winds, the Hecla did not arrive in the river Thames until the 6th of October, when I was sorry, though not surprised, to learn the death of Mr. George Crawford, the Greenland master, who departed this life on the 29th of September, sincerely lamented by all who knew him, as a zealous, active, and enterprising seaman, and an amiable and deserving man. Mr. Crawford had accompanied us in five successive voyages to the Polar Seas, and I truly regret the occasion which demands from me this public testimony of the value of his services and the excellence of his character.

* * * * *

Having finished my Narrative of this Attempt to reach the North Pole, I may perhaps be permitted, in conclusion, to offer such remarks as have lately occurred to me on the nature and practicability of the enterprise.

That the object is of still more difficult attainment than was before supposed, even by those persons who were the best qualified to judge of it, will, I believe, appear evident from a perusal of the foregoing pages; nor can I, after much consideration and some experience of the various difficulties which belong to it, recommend any material improvement in the plan lately adopted. Among the various schemes suggested for this purpose, it has been proposed to set out from Spitzbergen, and to make a rapid journey to the northward with sledges or sledge-boats, drawn wholly by dogs or reindeer; but, however feasible this plan may at first sight appear, I cannot say that our late experience of the nature of the ice which they would probably have to encounter has been at all favourable to it. It would, of course, be a matter of extreme imprudence to set out on this enterprise without the means of crossing, not merely narrow pools and "lanes," but more extensive spaces of open water, such as we met with between the margin of the ice and the Spitzbergen shores; and I do not conceive that any boat sufficiently large to be efficient and safe for this purpose could possibly be managed upon the ice, were the power employed to give it motion dependant on dogs or reindeer. On the contrary, it was a frequent subject of remark among the officers, that reason was a qualification scarcely less indispensable than strength and activity in travelling over such a road; daily instances occurring of our having to pass over difficult places, which no other animal than man could have been easily prevailed upon to attempt. Indeed, the constant necessity of launching and hauling up the boats (which operations we had frequently to perform eight or ten, and, on one occasion, seventeen times in the same day) would alone render it inexpedient, in my opinion, to depend chiefly upon animals; for it would certainly require more time and labour to get them into and out of the boats, than their services in the intervals, or their flesh ultimately used as food, would be worth; especially when it is considered how large a weight of provender must be carried for their own subsistence.[025]

In case of employing reindeer, which, from their strength, docility, and hardy habits, appear the best suited to this kind of travelling, there would be an evident advantage in setting out much earlier in the year than we did; perhaps about the end of April, when the ice is less broken up, and the snow much harder upon its surface than at a more advanced part of the season. But this, it must be recollected, would involve the necessity of passing the previous winter on the northern coast of Spitzbergen, which, even under favourable circumstances, would probably tend to weaken in some degree the energies of the men; while, on the other hand, it would be next to impossible to procure there a supply of provender for a number of tame reindeer, sufficient even to keep them alive, much less in tolerable condition, during a whole winter. In addition to this, it may be observed, that any party setting out earlier must be provided with a much greater weight of warm clothing in order to guard against the severity of cold, and also with an increased proportion of fuel for procuring water by the melting of snow, there being no fresh water upon the ice in these latitudes before the month of June.

In the kind of provisions proper to be employed in such enterprises--a very important consideration, where almost the whole difficulty may be said to resolve itself into a question of weight--I am not aware that any improvement could be made upon that with which we were furnished; for I know of none which appears to contain so much nutriment in so small a weight and compass. It may be useful, however, to remark, as the result of absolute experience, that our daily allowance of provisions,[026] although previously tried for some days on board the ship, and then considered to be enough, proved by no means sufficient to support the strength of men living constantly in the open air, exposed to wet and cold for at least twelve hours a day, seldom enjoying the luxury of a warm meal, and having to perform the kind of labour to which our people were subject. I have before remarked, that, previously to our return to the ship, our strength was considerably impaired; and, indeed, there is reason to believe that, very soon after entering upon the ice, the physical energies of the men were gradually diminishing, although, for the first few weeks, they did not appear to labour under any specific complaint. This diminution of strength, which we considered to be principally owing to the want of sufficient sustenance, became apparent, even after a fortnight, in the lifting of the bread-bags and other heavy weights; and I have no doubt that, in spite of every care on the part of the officers, as well as Mr. Beverly's skilful and humane attention to their ailments, some of the men, who had begun to fail before we quitted the ice, would, in a week or two longer, have suffered very severely, and become a serious encumbrance, instead of an assistance, to our party. As far as we were able to judge, without farther trial, Mr. Beverly and myself were of opinion that, in order to maintain the strength of men thus employed for several weeks together, an addition would be requisite of at least one third more to the provisions which we daily issued. I need scarcely remark how much this would increase the difficulty of equipping such an expedition.

I cannot dismiss the subject of this enterprise without attempting to explain, as far as I am able, how it may have happened that the ice over which we passed was found to answer so little to the description of that observed by the respectable authorities quoted in a former part of this volume.[027] It frequently occurred to us, in the course of our daily journeys, that this may, in some degree, have arisen from our navigators' having generally viewed the ice from a considerable height. The only clear and commanding view on board a ship is that from the crow's-nest; and Phipps's most important remarks concerning the nature of the ice to the north of Spitzbergen were made from a station several hundred feet above the sea; and, as it is well known how much the most experienced eye may thus be deceived, it is possible enough that the irregularities which cost us so much time and labour may, when viewed in this manner, have entirely escaped notice, and the whole surface have appeared one smooth and level plain.

It is, moreover, possible, that the broken state in which we unexpectedly found the ice may have arisen, at least in part, from an unusually wet season, preceded, perhaps, by a winter of less than ordinary severity. Of the latter we have no means of judging, there being no record, that I am aware of, of the temperature of that or any other winter passed in the higher latitudes; but, on comparing our Meteorological Register with some others kept during the corresponding season and about the same latitude,[028] it does appear that, though no material difference is observable in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, the quantity of rain which we experienced is considerably greater than usual; and it is well known how very rapidly ice is dissolved by a fall of rain. At all events, from whatever cause it may have arisen, it is certain that, about the meridian on which we proceeded northward in the boats, the sea was in a totally different state from what Phipps experienced, as may be seen from comparing our accounts--his ship being closely beset, near the Seven Islands, for several days about the beginning of August; whereas the Hecla, in the beginning of June, sailed about in the same neighbourhood without obstruction, and, before the close of July, not a piece of ice could be seen from Little Table Island.

I may add, in conclusion, that, before the middle of August, when we left the ice in our boats, a ship might have sailed to the latitude, of 82° almost without touching a piece of ice; and it was the general opinion among us, that, by the end of that month, it would probably have been no very difficult matter to reach the parallel of 83°, about the meridian of the Seven Islands.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[001] This name being applied by the Esquimaux to several other portions of land, all of which are insular, or nearly so, it is probable that the word simply signifies an island.

[002] The expression "fixed ice" appearing better suited to our present obstacle than that of "land ice," I shall in future adopt it in speaking of this barrier.

[003] Lest it should be thought that this account is exaggerated, I may here state, that, as a matter of curiosity, we one day tried how much a lad, scarcely full grown, would, if freely supplied, consume in this way. The under-mentioned articles were weighed before being given to him; he was twenty hours in getting through them, and certainly did not consider the quantity extraordinary.

lb. oz. Seahorse flesh, hard frozen 4 4 Ditto, boiled 4 4 Bread and bread-dust 1 12 ________

Total of solids 10 4 The Fluids were in fair proportion, viz.: Rich gravy-soup 1-1/4 pint. Raw spirits 3 wine glasses. Strong grog. 1 tumbler. Water 1 gallon 1 pint.

[004] We have since heard that these ships were the Dexterity, of Leith, and the Aurora, of Hull, which were wrecked on the 28th of August, 1821, about the latitude of 72°.

[005] A fine lad, of about sixteen, being one day out in a boat with one of our gentlemen at Arlagnuk, reminded him, with a serious face, that he had laid a gun down _full-cocked_. There happened to be no charge in the gun at the time; but this was a proof of the attention the boy had paid to the art of using firearms, as well as an instance of considerate and manly caution, scarcely to have been expected in an individual of that age.

[006] Most Greenland sailors use these; but many persons, both officers and men, have an absurd prejudice against what they call "wearing stays."

[007] It is remarkable that this poor man had, twice before, within the space of nine months, been very near death; for, besides the accident already mentioned, of falling down the hill when escaping from the bear, he was also in imminent danger of dying of dropsy during the winter.

[008] This birch, they said, had been procured from the southward by way of _Noowook_. We never met with any of the same kind in those parts of the country which we visited, except that observed by Captain Lyon in the deserted habitations of the Esquimaux near Five Hawser Bay.

[009] Toolooak, who was a frequent visitor at the young gentlemen's mess-table on board the Fury, once evinced this taste, and no small cunning at the same time, by asking alternately for a little more bread and a little more butter, till he had made a hearty meal.

[010] Cervical, 7; dorsal, 13; lumbar, 7; sacral, 3; caudal, 19.

[011] Cartwright's _Labrador_, iii., 232.

[012] Ledyard. _Proceedings of the African Association_, vol i, p. 30.

[013] The first travelling boat, which was built by way of experiment, was planked differently from these two; the planks, which were of half-inch oak, being ingeniously "tongued" together with copper, in order to save the necessity of caulking in case of the wood shrinking. This was the boat subsequently landed on Red Beach.

[014] This article of our equipment contains a large proportion of nutriment in a small weight and compass, and is therefore invaluable on such occasions. The process, which requires great attention, consists in drying large thin slices of the lean of the meat over the smoke of wood-fires, then pounding it, and lastly mixing it with about an equal weight of its own fat. In this state it is quite ready for use, without farther cooking.

[015] The merits of this simple but valuable invention being now too well known to require any detailed account of the experiments, it is only necessary for me to remark, in this place, that the compass, having the plate attached to it, gave, under all circumstances, the correct magnetic bearing.

[016] It is remarkable, that the Esquimaux word for boot is very like this--Kameega.

[017] I find it to be the universal opinion among the most experienced of our whalers, that there is much less ice met with, of late years, in getting to the northward, in these latitudes, than formerly was the case. Mr. Scoresby, to whose very valuable local information, contained in his "Account of the Arctic Regions," I have been greatly indebted on this occasion, mentions the circumstance as a generally received fact.

[018] It was probably some such gale as this which has given to Hakluyt's Headland, in an old Dutch chart, the appellation of "Duyvel's Hoek."

[019] I have been thus particular in noticing the Hecla's position, because our observations would appear to be, with one exception, the most northern on record at that time. The Commissioners of Longitude, in their memorial to the king in council, in the year 1821, consider that the "progress of discovery has not arrived northward, according to any well-authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of north latitude." Mr. Scoresby states his having observed in lat. 81° 12' 42".

[020] Had we succeeded in reaching the higher latitudes, where the change of the sun's altitude during the twenty-four hours is still less perceptible, it would have been essentially necessary to possess the certain means of knowing this; since an error of twelve hours of time would have carried us, when we intended to return, on a meridian opposite to, or 180° from, the right one. To obviate the possibility of this, we had some chronometers constructed by Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, of which the hour-hand made only one revolution in the day, the twenty-four hours being marked round the dial-plate.

[021] I may here mention, that, notwithstanding the heavy blows which the boats were constantly receiving, all our nautical and astronomical instruments were taken back to the ship without injury. This circumstance makes it, perhaps, worth while to explain, that they were lashed upon a wooden platform in the after locker of each boat, sufficiently small to be clear of the boat's sides, and playing on strong springs of whalebone, which entirely obviated the effects of the severe concussions to which they would otherwise have been subject.

[022] We found the best preservative against this glare to be a pair of spectacles, having the glass of a bluish-green colour, and with side-screens to them.

[023] Perhaps the name of this bay, from the Dutch word _Treuren_, "to lament, or be mournful," may have some reference to the graves found here.

[024] Mr. Crowe, of Hammerfest, who lately passed a winter on the southwestern coast of Spitzbergen, in about latitude 78°, informed me that he had _rain at Christmas_; a phenomenon which would indeed have astonished us at any of our former wintering stations in a much lower latitude. Perhaps the circumstance of the reindeer wintering at Spitzbergen may also be considered a proof of a comparatively temperate climate.

[025] See p. 254 of this volume. {line 6545 "The quantity of clean moss considered requisite for each deer per day is four pounds ..." - Transcriber}

[026] See p. 280 of this volume. {line 7210 "Our allowance of provisions for each man per day was as follows:" - Transcriber}

[027] See Introduction. {line 6343 "INTRODUCTION." - Transcriber}

[028] Particularly that of Mr. Scoresby during the month of July, from 1812 to 1818 inclusive, and Captain Franklin's for July and August, 1818.