276 RESULT OF LABOURS. Chap. XVII. 



much better suited to our present condition, than such poor 

 venison as reindeer would furnish at this season. A single 

 hare has been shot ; the white fur has nearly all disappeared, 

 and left exposed the summer coat of dull lead colour. 

 Several small birds not common to the northward are found 

 here. Insects abound ; the Doctor is perpetually in chase, 

 unless busily occupied in grubbing up plants. Young is 

 surveying the harbour. Hobson fully occupied with pre- 

 paring the ship for sea. I have been giving some attention 

 to the engines and boiler, and hope, with the help of the two 

 stokers, to be able to make use of our steam power. 



With regard to Christian's stratagem for approaching a 

 seal upon the ice, I have heard that the Greenlanders caught 

 the idea from a bear who was seen holding up a piece of ice 

 in his paws, and thus shielded from its view, steal up to a 

 seal ! I do not insist on the truth of the story. Esquimaux 

 require no such prompting ; their tradition is that by con- 

 cealing their boats and kayaks behind pieces of ice, and 

 drifting in before the wind, clothed in white furs, they suc- 

 ceeded in surprising the last of the Scandinavian settlements 

 in South Greenland ; they surrounded it, set fire to it, and 

 slaughtered the wretched inhabitants as they rushed out, one 

 powerful old man alone escaping with his young son to the 

 mountains of the interior. History tells us that the lost 

 colonies of Greenland, which were first settled in the 

 eleventh century, became extinct in the fourteenth. 



The men have received my hearty thanks for their great 

 exertions during the travelling period. I told them I con- 

 sidered every part of our search to have been fully and 

 efficiently performed. Our labours have determined the 

 exact position of the extreme northern promontory of 

 the continent of America ; I have affixed to it the name 

 of Murchison, after the distinguished President of the 

 Royal Geographical Society — the strenuous advocate for 



