M'Keevor's Voyage to Hudson's Bay. 45 



times they are eaten by the natives ; when the skins are used 

 as coverlets for cloathing, or for bordering and seaming their 

 habits. They are principally used, however, both in this 

 country and in Kamstschatka, for the purpose of drawing- their 

 sledges over the frozen snow during the winter-season. Four, 

 five, or six, as circumstances may require, are commonly 

 yoked to the same sledge, and will readily carry these persons 

 with their baggage a journey of fifty English miles a-day. 



On the 8th we got in sight of Cape Diggs, lat., as observed, 

 63 4', long. 78" 50'. And on the day following Cape Walsing- 

 harn came in view, bearing S. W., and in lat. 62 39', long 1 . 

 77 48'. 



August 10th. Finding it impossible to make further pro- 

 gress through the ice, we made fast to an island of prodigious 

 height and extent, and of a very singular shape. The fore 

 part, or that to which we anchored, was hollowed-out in a 

 semicircular form, and was of sufficient extent to afford shel- 

 ter to the three ships. The back part presented a perpendi- 

 cular cliff, which could not be less than 300 feet high ; the 

 top part presented a surface of about two miles in circumfer- 

 ence ; in one part raised into rugged fantastic hills, in another 

 depressed into abrupt precipitous vallies. Altogether, this 

 island formed one of the grandest piles I had ever witnessed. 

 About six o'clock a party of us agreed to go on shore. We 

 brought with us a very fine lad, a sailor-boy, who played the 

 German-flute inimitably well, and who had been on this, as 

 well as many other occasions, a very agreeable source of 

 amusement to us. After labouring very hard for near two 

 hours, we at length gained the summit of the island, which 

 we took possession of in the name of his Britannic majesty. 

 Having laid aside our ice-anchors, axes, staffs, &c. we sat 

 down to a collation of bread and cheese, after which we had 

 some wine. At length the lad began playing his flute ; the 

 rich and melodious sounds of which being reverberated from 

 the adjacent hills and vallies, gave it an inconceivably grand 

 effect. 



The sun still lingered on the verge of the western horizon, 

 appearing, as it M'ere, to rest his " hug-e disk" on one of the 

 frozen fields of ice. At length, however, after spreading a 

 saffron -col cured suffusion along the huge pile of clouds which 

 now assembled on all sides, like " misfortunes and disasters 

 around a sinking empire and falling monarch," he gently 

 closed the parting day. 



And now they change; a paler shadow strews 

 Its mantle o'er the mountains ; parting day 

 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang cuibues 



