174 Our North Land. 



arctic fox skins, and other pelts ; but the greatest attraction of their 

 collection was the long ivory horn of the narwhal or unicorn. The one 

 which they had obtained from the Eskimos was over five feet long 

 — a most curious specimen of natural history. 



They had experienced very good weather, with occasional flur- 

 ries of snow, but no heavy winds. They had had one gale of fifty 

 miles an hour, but it was of short duration. The mean temperature 

 of the last two weeks in August was set down at 36° Fah. above 

 zero. One or two light fogs were noted, but they had seen little or 

 no ice since we left them. 



They recorded the greatest rise and fall of tide which we met 

 with in the Strait, a maximum of thirty-two feet. 



They gave us an account of a visit, a day or two after we left 

 them, of some thirty natives in a large skin boat, a sort of family 

 craft. They were a happy lot of beings, and parted with such 

 skins as they had for miserable black tobacco, without demanding 

 much of that. They remained round the station a few days and put 

 off again, promising to return as soon as the ice made. 



A change was made with the men at Ashe's station. Messrs. 

 Skinner, Rainsford and Jordan came back to the Neptune, and Mr. 

 Ashe was given Messrs. Keating and Drysdale, the men originally 

 set down for him. Mr. Skinner and his assistants came on board to 

 be taken back to Resolution, where another attempt was to be made 

 to find an anchorage. 



At six o'clock, p.m., we were off for Stupart's Bay, on the south 

 shore opposite, a distance of about sixty nautical miles. The trip 

 across was marked by a heavy swell, which struck us about four 

 o'clock the next morning, caused by a heavy wind from the south- 

 east. The Neptune was laying to waiting for daylight in order to 

 make the harbour at the time, but she rode the waves in good style, 

 yielding readily to the motion of the water on account of being but 

 lightly ballasted. 



We cast anchor in Stupart's Bay at nine o'clock on Tuesday 

 morning, the Neptune still rising and falling and rolling in the 

 swell which, owing to the south-easterly wind, came into the anchor- 

 age, which is slightly unprotected at that quarter. 



