306 EXPEDITIONS OF PARRY AND ROSS— 1827-23. 



Eskimos attributed to the agency of the white strangers, to whom they ascribed 

 the possession of all manner of supernatural powers. An explanation imme- 

 diately followed, and friendly relations with the natives were soon re-estab- 

 lished. 



This journey, resultless in its objects, and dull enough in its details, was 

 enlivened by an exciting musk-ox hunt. Eoss's guide, Poo-yet-tah, having 

 discovered recent tracts of this animal, let slip the dogs. These immediately 

 started off upon the track at full speed, and Avere soon out of sight. Eoss and 

 the guide followed, and after a rapid march of two hours, on turning the 

 shoulder of a hill, had the intense satisfaction of beholding a fine ox at bay 

 before the three dogs. The guide, who now rushed on in advance, attempted 

 two or three times to bring down the huge animal with his arrows, which, 

 however, proved ineffectual and harmless against the great creature's ribs 

 and hide. Eoss advanced to within fifteen yards, and fired. The ox dropped, 

 but rising again, charged Eoss, who eluded the attack by dodging behind a 

 large stone, which was luckily in the near neighbourhood, and upon which 

 the animal, " rushing with all its force, struck its head so violently that it 

 fell to the ground with such a crash that the hard ground around us fairly 

 echoed to the sound." Again the creature recovered, and charged as before. 

 Eoss was now in the open, but having had time to reload, he awaited the 

 onset, fired, and brought down the ox at a distance of five yards. " The 

 sight of his fallen enemy," says Eoss, " made my companion scream and 

 dance with joy. . . . He was lost in astonishment at the effect of the 

 firearms ; first carefully examining the holes which the balls had made, and 

 pointing out to me that some of them had passed quite through the animal. 

 But it was the state of the broken shoulder which most surprised him ; nor 

 would it be easy to forget his look of horror or amazement when he looked 

 up in my face and exclaimed, ' Now-ek-poke ' — ' It is broken ! ' " 



Captain Eoss's narrative of the first year's sojourn of the "Victory" 

 among the ice is weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable to a degree beyond what 

 the heart of readers of the present day can conceive. Besides the present 

 writer, there is probably no human being alive at this moment who could, 

 would, or should read it in its entirety. It is suffused with a faint colouring 

 of interest only in one portion — that in which the expedition of Commander 

 Eoss across the isthmus of Boothia is described ; but even this journey, 

 performed in the face of continual perils, was in itself practically resultless. 

 It is with a sense of relief, therefore, and with no feeling of regret, that we 

 pass over the dull and monotonous details of Eoss's journal until we arrive 

 at the entry for the 17th September. In the morning of that day the ice 

 had drifted off the land, and at two o'clock, all necessary preparations having 

 been made, Eoss found himself once more afloat, and in clear water. He 

 advanced three miles, when he was again stopped by ice — the detention 



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