78 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



of the party, and sent a Dane and four picked Eskimos along 

 with it. The expedition started on the evening of August 10. 

 On that date two other parties started out a party to explore 

 the Similik glacier, composed of Professors Wright and 

 Jillson, and Messrs. Dove, F. Wright, Jr., Kersting, Orth, 

 Rumrill, and Brown ; and a party to go up the Isortok fiord 

 to hunt and fish, composed of Dr. Cramer, Professor Freeman, 

 Dr. Stebbins, and Messrs. Gay, Joyner, Garrison, and my- 

 self. We took along with us Clark, one of the waiters, 

 who proved himself an invaluable man, and five Eskimos as 

 guides. We had two boats, which were pretty well loaded 

 with our tents, provisions, baggage, guns, etc., to say nothing 

 of ourselves and the guides. Our main object was to hunt 

 deer. We went over the same course that I had previously 

 been over in going to the glacier, except that we eventually 

 passed the glacier and went about fifteen miles farther on. 



At about eight o'clock in the evening we reached an island 

 near the mouth of Isortok fiord, and here we pitched our tents 

 for the night. Clark cooked us an excellent meal, though we 

 had to be sparing with our provisions, for on the Miranda we 

 had already been put on short rations of two meals per diem. 

 At the start the stocking of the ship had been put in the 

 hands of a steward who was entirely new to the business. 

 He was a recent Yale graduate and an excellent linguist, but, 

 like the famous Miss Von Blurkey, 



" Both Latin and Greek he could fluently speak, 

 But he did not know chicken from turkey." 



Had the worst come to the worst, he might perhaps have 

 supplied us with enough Greek roots to have kept us all alive. 



The next day it was raining hard, and the Eskimos, whom 

 we had to consult in matters of this kind, declared that we 

 could not proceed. They were very positive weather prophets, 

 and it must be admitted that they did understand their own 



