IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION 187 



chance of their safety was small. Furthermore, he con- 

 sidered that the arrival of the dog was a fairly conclusive 

 evidence of tragedy. 



On the whole my own opinion was a little more opti- 

 mistic than even that of Dr. Howe, for I had gathered 

 from the polar books I had read that ice travel was pos- 

 sible, although dangerous, and could not see why it should 

 be much worse to the north of Alaska than in other parts 

 of the world. I have since learned that it is somewhat 

 more dangerous than the average in this locality, for the 

 currents are specially violent and the ice, in consequence, 

 particularly treacherous. Even had I known this, I 

 should still have expected the party to come back, for 

 they had been outfitted with provisions ample for a time 

 somewhat longer than their absence had as yet 

 amounted to. 



Dr. Howe's opinion was that our expedition would be 

 over that summer. The Duchess would probably sink in 

 the spring and we would have to take passage with whal- 

 ing ships to the outside world. This was a great disap- 

 pointment to him, but even more disappointing to me, 

 for my heart had been set upon visiting the Victoria Isl- 

 and Eskimos. 



When Leffingwell had first proposed to me in Chicago 

 that I go with him to Victoria Island the prospect had 

 seemed attractive. It is an island much bigger than 

 England. More than half a century before our time some 

 British explorers had examined a considerable part of 

 the coast and had met some Eskimos in two or three 

 places. It seemed probable that these explorers had not 

 seen more than a small fraction of the native population. 

 Furthermore, most of the Eskimos actually seen by the 

 explorers had probably died since then. It would be a 



