DR. KANE'S EXPEDITION. 513 



their purse-nets of seal-skin at the end of a narwhal's 

 tusk, would return in a few minutes with as many as he 

 could carry. " 



Up to the 23d the progress of Dr. Kane's party was 

 little more than a mile a day. The housed boats luck- 

 ily afforded tolerably good sleeping-berths at night. On 

 the 5th of June, Ohlsen injured himself so in an attempt 

 to rescue a sledge from falling into a tide-hole, that he 

 died three days afterwards. 



" Still passing slowly on, day after day, I am reluct- 

 ant/' writes Dr. Kane, " to borrow from my journal 

 the details of anxiety and embarrassment with which it 

 abounds throughout this period, we came at last to the 

 unmistakable neighborhood of open water." This was 

 off Pekintlek, the largest of the Littleton Island group. 



On Tuesday, the 19th of June, after a long farewell 

 given to their long-tried friends, the Esquimaux of 

 Etah, who had brought them frequent supplies of birds, 

 and aided them in carrying their provisions and stores, 

 they put to sea, and, the very first day's navigation, one 

 of the boats swamped. They spent the first night in 

 an inlet in the ice, and on the 22d reached Northumber- 

 land Island in a snow-storm. Here they got fresh pro- 

 visions. They crossed Murchison Channel on the 23d, 

 and encamped for the night on the land-floe at the base 

 of Cape Parry a hard day's travel, partly by tracking 

 over ice, partly through tortuous and zig-zag leads. So 

 it was for many successive days. One day favorable, 

 with open leads of water : another, slow and wearisome, 

 through alternate ice and water. Then the floe would 

 break up and carry thorn resistlessly against the rocks. 

 Three long days they passed in a cavern of rock and 

 ice, in which, however, they found plenty of birds' 

 eggs. 



On the llth they had doubled Cape Dudley Digges, 



83 



