ROSS AND PARRY. 81 



showed every sign of alarm, dreading, as was after- 

 wards understood, a fatal influence from the mere touch 

 of beings whom they regarded as members of an un- 

 known species. They soon, however, acquired greater 

 confidence, and gave the usual proof of it by making 

 free with whatever they could carry away. Following 

 the general usage, they have sledges drawn by large and 

 powerful teams of dogs ; their chase is chiefly confined to 

 hares, foxes of various colors, the seal, and the narwal. 

 They rejected with horror the proffered luxuries of bis- 

 cuit, sweetmeats, or spirits ; train-oil, as it streamed 

 from various species of fish, alone gratified their palate. 

 Captain Ross, swayed by national impressions, gave to 

 this district the name of the Arctic Highlands. 



In the northern part of this coast the navigators ob- 

 served a remarkable phenomenon a range of cliffs, 

 the snowy covering of which had exchanged its native 

 white for a tint of deep crimson. The latest observa- 

 tions on this red snow have established the vegetable 

 origin of the color. 



Having now passed Cape Dudley Digges, the com- 

 modore found himself among those spacious sounds 

 which Baffin had named, but so imperfectly described. 

 They all appeared to him, however, to be either bays 

 enclosed by land, or obstructed by impenetrable barriers 

 of ice. He sailed past Wolstenholme and Whale 

 Sounds very quickly, without approaching even their 

 entrance, concluding them to be blocked up with ice, 

 and to afford no hope of a passage. As these openings 

 stretched towards the north, it must be admitted that 

 they could not, in this high latitude, be considered very 

 favorable as to the object he had in view. He came 

 next to Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, which Baffin de- 

 scribed as the most spacious in the whole circuit of 

 vhese coasts. This was regarded with greater attenticn ; 

 6 



