96 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



tent some hidden bottle ; and after he had indulged in a soli- 

 tary seance he was apt to see any animal — not excepting 

 snakes. But though we got no deer, we caught quantities of 

 salmon and salmon -trout in the stream near us, and also 

 lake -trout, in the clear fresh -water lakes, which were all 

 about us. Our stream was simply teeming with fish. I 

 know that fish stories are generally taken with a grain of salt, 

 and often with more liberal quantities ; but as 1 have been 

 truthful about the deer, though in so far-away a region it 

 would be easy to draw upon the imagination without de- 

 tection, my word shoul I be relied upon as regards the amount 

 of fish we caught. This is a fact : during an afternoon^s 

 sport one of our party caught one hundred, and sixty-two 

 salmon - trout, and another within an hour's time captured 

 forty-five. The Eskimos had a little set-net with which they 

 caught some beautiful large salmon, and they also gaffed the 

 fish with great skill. We sim]3ly revelled in salmon and 

 trout. I know of nothing finer than a salmon just out of 

 the water, or a large salmon-trout baked upon a flat rock. 

 Any one who has indulged in this luxury out in the open after 

 a day's sport can bear me out in the assertion. Up in the 

 highlands we found those delicious birds, the ptarmigan, and 

 on the water we shot guillemots, murres, and puffin, so that 

 we managed to live Avell in spite of our hick of venison. 



On August 19 we bid a regretful farewell to our camp, for 

 it was time for us to get back to the Miranda. Dr. Cook 

 was expected back within ten days from the time of starting, 

 and we did not want to take any chances of causing a delay. 

 We carried back to our comrades on the ship two hundred 

 pounds of salmon. There was one thing we were glad to 

 leave behind us, and that w^as an old familiar pest — the mos- 

 quito. I have come to think that Greenland is the father- 

 land of the mosquito ; for over its wastes it breeds and multi- 

 plies in a way that gives evidence of a most conducive environ- 



