294 DR. KANE'S FAMOUS ARCTIC VOYAGE 



feast, as when on one occasion they heard the welcome sound of a 

 large flock of eider ducks. Knowing that the breeding place of 

 these birds must be near at hand, they sought and found it. Here 

 they remained for three days, gorging themselves on eggs, of which 

 they found as many as twelve hundred in a day, and unheeding a 

 tempest which was then howling over their heads. 



After Cape York was reached and passed the birds failed them 

 and they were reduced to their scanty diet again, their stock of pro- 

 visions being diminished until they had only about thirty-six pounds 

 per man. Of fuel they had a three weeks' supply, to which they 

 added by cutting up the "Red Eric," and proceeding in the other 

 two boats, on which its wood was loaded. 



Under the influence of insufficient food the strength of the 

 wayfarers steadily declined. Five ounces of bread-dust, four of 

 tallow and three of bird-meat was all that could be allowed for a 

 day's rations, a very small supply in that severe climate and under 

 circumstances of incessant toil. 



Dr. Kane remarks as curious that the effect of insufficient food 

 is not, as might be supposed, the pangs of hunger. The first symp- 

 tom is loss of power, often so imperceptibly brought on that only an 

 accident reveals its extent. "I well remember," he says, "our look 

 of blank amazement as, one day, the order being given to haul the 

 'Hope' over a tongue of ice, we found that she would not budge. 

 At first I thought it was owing to the wetness of the snow-covered 

 surface in which her runners were; but as there was a heavy gale 

 blowing outside, and I was extremely anxious to get her on to a 

 larger floe to prevent being drifted off, I lightened her cargo, and 

 set both crews upon her. In the land of promise off Crimson Cliffs, 

 such a force would have trundled her like a wheelbarrow : we could 

 almost have borne her upon our backs. Now, with incessant labor 

 and standing hauls, she moved at a snail's pace." 



It was on this occasion that the little company nearly lost their 

 best boat, the "Faith," which drifted away from the ice-floe. The 



