2 o8 RETURN TO THE 'FOX? Chap. XII. 



On reaching the ship, I at once assembled my small crew, 

 and told them of the information we had obtained, pointing 

 out that there still remained one of the ships unaccounted 

 for, and therefore it was necessary to carry out all our pro- 

 jected lines of search. 



During this journey I acquired the arctic accomplishment 

 of eating frozen bear's blubber, in delicate little slices on 

 biscuit, and vastly preferred it to frozen pork. At the 

 present moment I do not think I could even taste it, but 

 the same privation and sense of starvation from cold rather 

 than hunger, which induced me to eat it then, would doubt- 

 less enable me again to partake of it very kindly, if similarly 

 " cooked with frost." 



I shot a couple of foxes which came playing about the 

 dogs; conscious of their superior speed, they were very 

 impudent, snapping at the dogs' tails, and passing almost 

 under their noses. I shot these foxes, intending to eat 

 them ; but the dogs anticipated me with respect to one ; the 

 other we feasted off at our mess-table ; it proved insipid, but 

 decidedly better to our tastes than preserved meat. 



Young and his party had returned on board on the 3rd of 

 March, having placed their depot upon the shore of Prince 

 of Wales' Land, about 70 miles S.W. of the ship. Young 

 found the ice in Bellot Strait so rough as to be impassable, 

 and was obliged to adopt the lake route. Prince of Wales' 

 Land was found to be composed of limestone ; the shore 

 was low, and fringed for a distance of ten miles to seaward 

 with an ancient land -floe. The remaining width of the 

 strait between this land (North Somers'e't) and Prince of 

 Wales' Land was about 15 miles, and this space was com- 

 posed of ice formed since September last \ this was the 

 water we looked at so anxiously last autumn from Cape 

 Bird and Pemmican Rock. His party lived in their tent, 

 protected from the wind by snow walls, and, like ourselves, 



