294 Hall Begins a Long Journey. [February, iser. 



of Hall's return from his proposed journey might be beyond the open- 

 ing of the season. Then, men and dogs must be actively employed to 

 increase, if possible, the poor returns of the past year." Hall could 

 not even get one of his own dogs, which he had put in Ook-har -loo's 

 trust on returning from the last sledge journey. He was the more 

 suq^rised at this issue, because the use of the teams was as clearly 

 within the ideas of the conversations held in the winter, as was his 

 selection of the white men, which had met the approval of the cap- 

 tains ; if any difficulty on this point had arisen in these conversations 

 some trace of it would be found in his full notes Helpless to enforce 

 claims upon the natives, who were fully willing to keep their promises, 

 he determined to make a sledge trip to Am-i-toke, or perhaps to Ig-loo- 

 lik, even in the very depth of the winter, to buy his teams. The jour- 

 ney might be one of more than three hundred miles ; but another year 

 could not be lost. The captains cordially supplied him with articles 

 of barter, which, within the next few days, he carefully arranged, 

 making up also his stores for the trip. Sending his white men to one 

 of the deposits to get whale-meat for the dog-food, he fed the men on 

 their return with whale-skin, remarking in his notes that he had edu- 

 cated them until they really liked raw, frozen meat, and adding that, 

 j)erhaps with these very men, on his next voyage, D. V., he would 

 push his discoveries to the North Pole. His thoughts had been on 

 such a voyage during the past season. It had been discussed with 

 the wlialers, and he had openly avowed his intention to organize an 

 expedition to the Pole as soon as he had completed his present mis- 

 sion ; h(.' hold this voyage in mind when examining the volunteers 

 loi' his present journey. 



After wjiitiii^i- the iT'tiirn of some of t'le natives from a trip made 



