124 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
satisfied that they would soon make their appearance 
also ; and before dark we had the satisfaction to find — 
our expectations fulfilled. The feet of most of them 
are very much frost-bitten, and they are all exces- 
sively fatigued, but I have no doubt, from the proper 
manner in which they were managed on first com- 
ing on board, but that they will all in a short time get 
perfectly well. With regard to food, it happened that 
they were by no means badly off, for they managed to 
kill as many grousas they couldeat. It appears that 
they lost their way the second day, or rather the night 
of the first day on which they went away; conse- 
quently, very little information could be gathered from 
them as to where they had been during the rest of the 
time. They seem to think that they were never above 
twenty, or at most five-and-twenty, miles inland. 
They found the country, after travelling fifteen or 
twenty miles from the coast, to be much more fer- 
tile than in the neighbourhood of the sea; the vallies 
and level plains in particular they describe as abound- 
ing with grass and moss. On these plains they saw 
several herds of reindeer, and two animals of the deer 
kind, but much larger than the reindeer ; they sup- 
posed them to be the elk, and their description of 
them seems to answer to that which we have of these 
animals. ‘They saw also a number of hares inland, 
but no musk-oxen. Some of those, however, who 
have been in search of the stray party during these 
two days past, saw some herds, of these cattle. In 
the course of their wandering, they fell in with a 
small lake of fresh water, in which they found fish, two 
of which they brought on board, and they turned out 
to be a species of trout. As it was after they lost their 
