ELISHA KENT KANE. 123 



we had established during the winter. They brought us daily 

 supplies of birds, helped us to carry our provisions and stores, 

 and in their daily intercourse with us exhibited the kindest 

 feeling and most rigid honesty. "When we remembered that 

 they had been so assuming and aggressive upon our first 

 arrival that I was forced to seize their wives as hostages for 

 the protection of our property, their present demeanor was 

 not without its lesson. Once convinced of our superiority 

 of power, and assured of our disposition to unite our resources 

 with theirs for mutual protection and support, they had relied 

 upon us implicitly, and strove now to requite their obligations 

 toward us by ministering to our wants. We left them on the 

 18th of June, at the margin of the floe. In thirty-one days 

 we had walked three hundred and sixteen miles, and had 

 transported our boats over eighty-one miles of unbroken ice. 

 The men, women, and children of the little settlement had 

 also travelled over the ice to bid us good-bye, and we did not 

 part from them without emotion. 



"The passage between this point and one ten miles north- 

 west of Hakluyt Island was in open water. It was the only 

 open water seen north of Cape York, in latitude 75 59' N. 

 We ran this under sail in a single day, hauling up on the ice 

 to sleep. The ice was a closed pack, hanging around the 

 north and south channels of Murchison Sound, and seemingly 

 continued to the westward. The land-ices were still unbroken, 

 and we were obliged to continue our journey by alternate 

 movements over ice and water. So protracted and arduous 

 were these, that between the 20th of June and the 6th of 

 July we had advanced but one hundred miles. Our average 

 progress was about eight miles a day, stopping for our hunting- 

 parties and for sleep. Great care was taken not to infringe 

 upon the daily routine. We had perpetual daylight but it 

 was my rule, rarely broken even by extreme necessity, not to 



