July, 185S. CAUGHT IN THE ICE. 115 



land Company, through the Inspector of North Greenland, 

 to convey from their isolated locality these arctic high- 

 landers (numbering in all 120 souls), to the Danish settle- 

 ments in Greenland ; and had the object and circumstances 

 of my voyage permitted m'e to turn aside for this purpose, 

 it would have afforded me very sincere satisfaction to have 

 carried out so humane a project. 



It is indeed hard to realize their state of existence ; they 

 have no vegetable food whatever, neither wood nor metal, 

 no canoes, not even a bow ; and yet they exist in a mean 

 annual temperature of 34 below the freezing point, further 

 north than any other known people, and where the sun is 

 absent for one third of the year ! 



Having distributed presents of knives and needles, and 

 explained to them that we did so because they had behaved 

 well to the white people (as we learn from Dr. Kane's 

 narrative of their treatment of him and his crew), we pur- 

 sued our voyage, not doubting but that we should soon 

 reach the North Water, an extensive sea through which we 

 could sail uninterruptedly to Pond's Bay. 



During the night we advanced through loose ice ; but fog 

 and a rising S.E. gale delayed us, and to-day the pack has 

 pressed in against the land, so that our wings are most 

 unexpectedly clipped. A walrus was shot through the head 

 by a Minie bullet ; none other will penetrate such a massive 

 skull : unfortunately for my collection of specimens and for 

 the dogs, the animal sank. 



2nd July. — For five days we have been almost beset 

 amongst loose ice and grounded bergs; the winds were 

 generally from the S.E. and accompanied by fog. To avoid 

 being squeezed we had constantly to shift our posi- 

 tion ; once we were caught and rather severely nipped ; 

 the ship was heeled over about ten degrees and lifted a 

 couple of feet : the ice was three feet thick, but broke 



1 2 



