1772. SAMUEL HEARNE. ^97 



weather beginning to be excessively cold, all his 

 provisions expended, and no supply to be had, the 

 chief of the Indians who accompanied him wish- 

 ing to return, and ultimately leaving him, he was 

 obliged to retrace his steps, after reaching no 

 farther than about the 64th deo-ree of latitude, 

 and arrived at the factory on the 11th December. 

 On the 23d February, 1770, he set out a second 

 time, accompanied by three northern and two 

 southern Indians. They continued to proceed 

 slowly to the northward and westward, living on 

 what the country afforded, which was sometimes 

 most abundant and at others nothing at all — or, as 

 Hearne says, " either all feasting or all famine ; 

 sometimes we had too much, seldom just enough, 

 frequently too little, and often none at all. It 

 w^iil be only necessary to say, that we have fasted 

 many times two whole days and nights, twice 

 upwards of three days, and once near seven days, 

 during which we tasted not a mouthful of any 

 thing, except a few cranberries, water, scraps of 

 old leather, and burnt bones."* Towards the end 

 of July his guide intimated to him that it was too 

 late that year to think of reaching the Copper 

 Mine River, and proposed spending the winter 

 among a tribe of Indians where they then were, 

 between the 63d and 64th degrees of latitude ; 



* Journey from Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean, by Samuel 

 Jlearne, p. 33. 



