July, 1859. SEARCH FOR CAPTAIN YOUNG. 171 



in the hope of meeting with him, and of facilitating his 

 return. To our surprise the water had all drained off the 

 frozen surface of the Long Lake, and it therefore afforded 

 excellent travelling. We found the poor dogs lying quietly 

 beside our sledges ; they had attacked the pemmican, and 

 devoured a small quantity which was not secured in tin, also 

 some blubber, some leather straps, and a gull that I had 

 shot for a specimen ; but they had not apparently relished 

 the biscuit. Poor dogs ! they have a hard life of it in these 

 regions. Even Petersen, who is generally kind and humane, 

 seems to fancy they must have little or no feeling : one of 

 his theories is, that you may knock an Esquimaux dog 

 about the head with any article, however heavy, with perfect 

 impunity to the brute. One of us upbraided him the other 

 day because he broke his whip-handle over the head of a 

 dog. u That was nothing at a//" he assured us : some friend 

 of his in Greenland found he could beat his dogs over the 

 head with a heavy hammer — it stunned them certainly — 

 but by laying them with their mouths open to the wind, they 

 soon revived, got up, and ran about " all right? 



We lost no time in giving them a good feed, the first for 

 seven days, yet they did not seem unusually hungry, and 

 soon coiled themselves up to sleep again. Whilst the men 

 and dogs were employed next day in conveying a sledge 

 to the east end of the lake, I walked to Cape Bird to look 

 out for the absent party, but they had not yet returned to 

 Pemmican Rock. 



When vainly endeavouring, with felonious intentions, to 

 climb up a steep cliff to the breeding-places of some silvery 

 gulls, I saw and shot a brent goose, seated upon an accessible 

 ledge, and made a prize of four eggs ; that this bird should 

 have selected so unusual a breeding-place is a proof that in 

 cunning she was more than a match for the foxes, for her 

 nest was quite beyond their reach. Many seals were bask- 



