SUMMER CEUISE 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 



