DR. KANE'S FAMOUS ARCTIC VOYAGE 289 



globe." Straining his gaze into the misty distance, Morton could 

 dimly see, far away on the western shore, a bare truncated peak, 

 which they supposed to be 2,500 or 3,000 feet in height and to which 

 Kane gave the name of the great pioneer of Arctic travel, Sir Ed- 

 ward Parry. 



The summer advanced, August came, and efforts were made 

 to release the brig, which for eleven months had been imprisoned in 

 the ice. These efforts proved useless, the young ice began to close 

 in all around the harbor, and it was evident that another winter 

 lay before them in the ice, unless they should attempt to escape in 

 their boats and seek the Danish settlements on the Greenland coast. 

 Dr. Kane determined to stand by the ship until the following spring, 

 but left it to the others to decide if they would remain with him. 

 Eight concluded to do so, while the remainder started on August 

 28th in one of the boats, under the leadership of Dr. Hayes, deter- 

 mined to push their way south, if possible. It did not prove possi- 

 sible. One of them returned in a few days after the start and the 

 others in December. For three months they had been frozen up 

 in an Eskimo hut, built in a rock crevice, within three hundred 

 miles of the brig. Here they lived almost without fire and light and 

 on such small supplies of walrus meat as they could procure from 

 natives living fifty miles away. In the end starvation drove them 

 back to the vessel, traveling by moonlight, with the aid of Eskimo 

 dogs and sledges. In the journey Dr. Hayes fell into a space of 

 open water and was wet to the skin. His body was badly frozen 

 in many places, and he was only kept alive by the driver pounding 

 him with his whip-stock. 



The winter passed away with distressing slowness. All the 

 precautions they could take did not prevent them from suffering 

 from the terrible cold of an Arctic winter, while the want of proper 

 and sufficient food and the appearance of scurvy among them aggra- 

 vated their pains. Their location was north of the Eskimo village 

 of Etah now so well known as a starting point for Arctic expe- 



