SUMMER CRUISE 41 
arrived in port only an hour ahead of the neptune. The ships 
were soon moored alongside, and the mail from civilization was 
distributed to the ship's company, this being the first news of 
the outside world received in eleven months. 
VOYAGE TO THE ARCTIC ISLANDS. 
A week was spent at Port Burwell, transferring the coals 
and provisions from the Erik to the Neptune, and in landing 
a large quantity of coal and provisions for the use of the North- 
west Mounted Police. All this work having been finished, both 
ships weighed anchor early on the morning of the 2nd of 
August, the Erik bound south for Newfoundland and the 
Neptune northward for Smith sound. 
Major Moodie having decided to return to Ottawa, left on 
the Erik, and that ship also carried our second steward, who 
was invalided home, along with a sailor of the Era who, during 
the past winter, had nearly died of scurvy. 
The course was laid across the mouth of the strait, and at 
noon the snow-covered cliffs of Cape Resolution bore north- 
northeast, distant about twenty miles. A few icebergs were 
passed during the afternoon, but no field ice was seen until the 
following evening, when a few heavy pans were met. As the 
weather was thick with fog the ship slowed down for the night, 
and the course was changed more to the eastward. Thick fog 
continued until the afternoon of the 6th, when, the weather 
clearing, we found ourselves about twenty miles to the westward 
of the great island of Disko, on the coast of Greenland. The 
scenery of the island is very grand; the shore-line is deeply 
indented by narrow bays, from which the land rises abruptly 
into irregular mountain masses, terminating in sharp peaks, 
whose loftier summits were hidden in the straight line of clouds 
formed from the recently risen fog. All the higher valleys 
were filled with great glaciers pouring slowly down into a sea 
