XIX 



THE FIRST MUSK-OX 



TWO days more of hard running, in a wind that seemed 

 to come direct from the north pole, brought us we did 

 not know where, but certainly once again to the verge of 

 starvation. Meat there was none, and the little pieces of 

 intestines and grease were not calculated to keep one up 

 to such vigorous work. There had been no change in the 

 country ; indeed, the entire stretch of Barren Ground, so 

 far as I saw, repeats over and over again its few character- 

 istics. Probably as you go north it becomes a little more 

 rolling, if I may use such a word, where its face is broken 

 by ridges of rock, round-backed and conical hills, small 

 lakes, long, slow-rising, and moderate elevations, all entire- 

 ly unconnected and separated from one another, and yet 

 the view from an especially prominent elevation always 

 reveals the general prairie (rolling) contour of the whole 

 benighted country. 



And everywhere silence ; no sign of life, no vegetation, 

 save the black moss that is used for fuel in summer by 

 the Indians, and the gray moss and lichens upon which 

 the musk-ox and caribou feed. 



A glutinous soup is made by starving Indians on their 

 summer trips from one kind of lichen, and there is a weed 

 from which a substitute for tea is brewed in times of ex- 

 tremity. 



It was about three o'clock when we dragged ourselves 



