100 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. IV 



a continued state of mental inactivity, were but too 

 sure to produce. The total privation of game of 

 any kind afforded few excursions for the source of 

 exercise and amusement, which hunting is known 

 to confer. Parties, however, had occasionally been 

 sent out shortly after the taking up of their winter 

 quarters. One of these did not return on board 

 before sunset, as strictly ordered, and the conse- 

 quence is stated to have been as follows : — 



" John Pearson, a marine belonging to the Griper, who 

 was the last that returned on board, had his hands severely 

 frost-bitten, having imprudently gone away without mittens, 

 and with a musket in his hand. A party of our people most 

 providentially found him, although the night was very dark, 

 just as he had fallen down a bank of snow, and was beginning 

 to feel that degree of torpor and drowsiness which, if in- 

 dulged, inevitably proves fatal. When he was brought on 

 board his fingers were quite stiff, and bent into the shape of 

 that part of the musket which he had been carrying : and 

 the frost had so far destroyed the animation in his fingers on 

 one hand that it was necessary to amputate three of them 

 a short time after, notwithstanding all the care and atten- 

 tion paid to him by the medical gentlemen. The effect 

 which exposure to severe frost has in benumbing the mental 

 as well as the corporeal faculties, was very striking in this 

 man, as well as in two of the young gentlemen, who returned 

 after dark, and of whom we were anxious to make inquiries 

 respecting Pearson. When I sent for them into my cabin 

 they looked wild, spoke thick and indistinctly, and it was 

 impossible to draw from them a rational answer to any of 

 our questions. After being on board for a short time the 

 mental faculties appeared gradually to return with the 



