OF THE POLAR SEA. 393 



I HAVE little now to add to the melancholy de- 

 tail into which I felt it proper to enter ; but I 

 cannot omit to state, that the unremitting care 

 and attentions of our kind friends, Mr. M'Vicar 

 and Mr. M' Auley, together with the improvement 

 of our diet, materially contributed to the restora- 

 tion of our health ; so that, by the end of Fe- 

 bruary, the swellings of our limbs, which had 

 returned upon us, had entirely subsided, and we 

 were able to walk to any part of the island. Our 

 appetites gradually moderated, and we nearly 

 regained our ordinary state of body before the 

 spring, Hepburn alone suffered from a severe 

 attack of rheumatism, which confined him to his 

 bed for some weeks. The usual symptoms of 

 spring having appeared, on the 25th of May we 

 prepared to embark for Fort Chipewyan. Fortu- 

 nately, on the following morning, a canoe arrived 

 from that place with the whole of the stores which 

 we required for the payment of Akaitcho and the 

 hunters. It was extremely gratifying to us to 

 be thus enabled, previous to our departure, to 

 make arrangements respecting the payment of 

 our late Indian companions ; and the more so, as 

 wc had recently discovered that Akaitcho, and 

 the whole of the tribe, in consequence of the 

 death of the leader's mother, and the wife of our 



