346 QUITTING THE LAND-ICE. 



efforts ; and when I sought for some token of living 

 thing, some track of wild beast, — a fox, or bear, or 

 reindeer, — which had, elsewhere, always crossed me 

 in my journeyings, and saw nothing but two feeble 

 men and our struggling dogs, it seemed indeed as if 

 the Almighty had frowned upon the hills and seas. 



Since leaving Cairn Point we had looked most 

 anxiously for bears ; but although we had seen many 

 tracks, especially about Cape Frazer, not a single ani- 

 mal had been observed. A bear, indeed, wouL I have 

 been a godsend to us. and would have placed me 

 wholly beyond anxiety respecting the strength of the 

 dogs, as it would not only have put new life into 

 them, but would have given them several days of 

 more substantial rations than the dried beef which 

 they had been so long fed upon. 



After a ten hours' march, we found ourselves once 

 more compelled to camp ; and four hours of the fol- 

 lowing day brought us to the southern cape of a bay 

 which was so deep that, as in other cases of like ob- 

 struction, we determined to cross over it rather than 

 to follow the shore line. We had gone only a few 

 miles when we found our progress suddenly arrested. 

 Our course was made directly for a conspicuous head- 

 land bounding the bay to the northward, over a strip 

 of old ice lining the shore. This headland seemed to 

 be about twenty miles from us, or near latitude 82°, 

 and I was very desirous of reaching it ; but, unhap- 

 pily, the old ice came suddenly to an end, and after 

 scrambling over the fringe of hummocks which mar- 

 gined it, we found ourselves upon ice of the late win- 

 ter. The unerring instinct of the dogs warned us of 

 approaching danger. They were observed for some 

 time to be moving with unusual caution, and finally 



