406 DR JOHN RAES EXPLORA TIONS—18'iQA7. 



The skill thus acquired proved of the greatest value a few months after- 

 wards, when the party were out exploring the shores of Boothia and Mel- 

 ville Peninsula. As the month wore on, out-door amusements were all but 

 abandoned owing to the severity of the weather; and wrestling and 

 occasional games at football were the only means of obtaining exercise, 

 keeping up the animal heat, and thus preventing the approach of the 

 dreaded enemy, scurvy. " Christmas Day was passed very agreeably, but 

 the weather was so stormy and cold that only a very short game at football 

 could be played. Short as it was, however, it was sufficiently amusing, for 

 our faces were every moment getting frost-bitten either in one place or 

 another, so as to require the continual application of the hand ; and the 

 rubbing, running about, and kicking the ball all at the same time, produced 

 a very ludicrous effect." The Christmas dinner of the explorers consisted of 

 venison and a plimi pudding, with a modest bumper of brandy-punch where- 

 with to drink a health to absent friends. This was tolerable fare for Eepulse 

 Bay; and the rigour of the weather at this season seems only to have 

 enhanced the comforts of the feast. So intense was the cold in December 

 that any water getting among the hair while the face was being washed 

 instantly froze, making the locks rigid as the quills of the porcupine. North 

 Pole Eiver froze to the bottom on the 28th, after which water was only 

 to be obtained with much inconvenience from a lake at the distance of 

 half-a-mile. On New Year's Day, 1847, the temperature varied from 55° to 

 69° below the freezing point. Dr Eae, being a Scotsman, observed this 

 day with the due and customary solemnities. The whole party had an 

 excellent breakfast of fat venison steaks, after which they amused them- 

 selves for some hours playing football, " at which there was much fun, the 

 snow being so hard and slippery that several pairs of heels might be seen in 

 the air at the same time." Hare, venison, and reindeer tongue, with currant 

 pudding, made a good dinner for the first day of the year ; a small supply of 

 brandy was served out, " and," says Eae, " on the whole, I do not believe that 

 a more happy company could have been found in America, large as it is. 

 'Tis true that an agreeable companion to join me in a glass of punch, to 

 drink a health to absent friends, to speak of bygone times and speculate 

 on the future, might have made the evening pass more pleasantly ; yet I was 

 far from unhappy. To hear the merry joke, the hearty laugh, and lively 

 song, among my men, was of itself a source of much pleasure." 



The season of extreme cold was now at hand. On the 7th January the 

 temperature registered was 79° below the freezing point. On the 9th there 

 was a storm with thick snow-drift— the temperature 72° below freezing point 

 —and, owing to the wind, bitterly cold. A house had been made for the 

 dogs only a few days previously, else the animals must have been frozen to 

 death. The force of the gale completely demolished Eae's two observa- 



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