292 DR. KANE'S FAMOUS ARCTIC VOYAGE 



assembled in the dismantled winter cabin to assist in the ceremony. 

 It was Sunday. They read prayers and a chapter of the Bible. 

 Then Dr. Kane addressed them in a few manly words. He did not 

 attempt to disguise the difficulties that lay before them ; but he de- 

 clared that they could be overcome by energy and subordination to 

 command, and that the thirteen hundred miles of ice and water 

 that lay between them and North Greenland could be safely tra- 

 versed by the majority and that, indeed, there was hope for all. 

 He added that, as men and mess-mates, it was their duty and a 

 duty enjoined upon them alike by religion and true courage to 

 postpone every consideration of self to the protection of the sick 

 and the wounded; and this, under all circumstances, and by every 

 one of them, must be regarded as a paramount order. In conclu- 

 sion, he desired them to reflect upon the trials they had experienced 

 and surmounted, and to remember how often an unseen Power had 

 rescued them in the hour of danger. In Him it was for all of them 

 to put their trust, confident that He would shield and save. 



For the first part of the journey all went well and favorable 

 progress was made, though on many days their labors were severe 

 and at times disheartening, as the following extract from Dr. Kane's 

 journal will show: 



"From this time," he says, "we went on for some days, aided 

 by our sails, meeting with accidents occasionally the giving way 

 of a spar or the falling of some of the party through the spongy 

 ice and occasionally, when the floe was altogether too infirm, labor- 

 ing our way with great difficulty upon the ice belt. To mount this 

 solid highway, or to descend from it, the axes were always in requi- 

 sition. An inclined plane was to be cut, ten, fifteen, or even thirty 

 feet long; and along this the sledges were to be pushed and guided 

 by bars and levers with painful labor. These are light things, as 

 I refer to them here; but in our circumstances, at the time I write 

 of, when the breaking of a stick of timber was an irreparable harm, 

 and the delay of a day involved the peril of life, they were grave 



