218 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. VII. 



tion which had been proved and condemned as one 

 of the most difficult and dangerous of the many 

 difficult ones that occur in this part of the Arctic 

 Seas. The old voyagers, it is true, proceeded in 

 ships much inferior in size and strength to the 

 Griper ; yet they rarely navigated those seas alone, 

 and not unfrequently with three or four in com- 

 pany. Captain Lyon says, however, that he was 

 amply compensated for want of a more extensive 

 society, " by having the happiness of knowing that 

 I had officers and men with whom I was confident 

 of continuing on the most friendly terms." Two 

 days after this the ship struck on a rock ; and the 

 heavy and continued shocks heeled her so much that 

 the Commander " imagined she was turning over." 

 She might have gone down, in which case Lyon's 

 "ample compensation' would have been of little 

 use in this uninhabited and desolate part of the 

 globe. 



The constant shipping of seas and the continued 

 wet weather had rendered everything within the 

 ship " very damp." The two ponies, therefore, 

 with the ducks, geese, and fowls, were handed out 

 upon the ice, where, the Captain says, " they pre- 

 sented a most novel appearance." To enliven the 

 scene, about sixty Esquimaux, men and women, in 

 kayaks and oomiaks, visited the strangers, made a 

 loud screaming noise, and brought with them some 

 trifling articles of barter, chiefly weapons and skin 



