356 WHITE WHALES. [CHAP.VI. 



position. All repairs about the ship and rigging 

 being completed, there was little occupation to 

 be found for the crew, who, by way of ex- 

 ercise, were regularly drilled by the Sergeant of 

 Marines, under the inspection of Lieutenant 

 Smyth, and made to march quick and travel hard 

 round the upper deck, for an hour or more, until 

 they had been properly breathed for the day. 



Having now more pemmican than with our 

 weakened crew could be made use of on boat 

 service, and as this was a perishable article, I 

 ordered it to be issued once a week, in the place 

 of preserved meat ; the store of which, if not 

 required, might be appropriated hereafter in any 

 manner Government thought proper. In the 

 afternoon it blew a gale which separated the ice 

 so far as to leave a considerable space of open 

 water, where, for the first time this season, some 

 white whales were observed. At 6 h p. m. land 

 was descried to the south, the bearings of which 

 were from S.W. to E.S.E. 



June 9th. There was much loose ice to the 

 eastward, mingled with several smooth and 

 regular floes, which evidently had neither been 

 exposed to pressure nor otherwise disturbed, 

 except as we now beheld them. The ice form- 

 ing our pack was unaltered in area, though 

 slightlv diminished in thickness from the in- 

 creased temperature of the day. At night the 



