OPEN WATER REACHED. 513 



ingof the 18th, "but/' says the gallant captain, " had we been advancing 

 instead of retreating, I do not believe we should have felt the fatigue nearly 

 to the same extent." But they were hurrying on to winter quarters, where 

 food and rest awaited them. " The very dogs," writes Penny, " knew they 

 were going home. Poor brutes ! they had nothing to eat for the last twenty- 

 four hours. Had any member of the Royal Humane Society seen us, I fear 

 very much our conduct would not have met with his approbation, for it did 

 not meet with our own ; but necessity has no laws, and no human foresight 

 could have informed us that we should not have got a bear where so many 

 were seen. In a hunt which I had after one, in which I was assisted by the 

 dogs, I ran until sheer exhaustion brought me to the ground. I was never 

 so disappointed with the loss of a whale worth a thousand pounds as with 

 the loss of that bear!" On the 19th Mr Petersen's sealskin dress was 

 divided among the voracious dogs, and eagerly devoured. On the evening 

 of the 19th — Penny was travelling by night, to avoid the snow glare — the 

 sledges were started, though everything was enveloped in a whirling snow- 

 drift ; " nevertheless, on we went," says the captain, " although the dogs had 

 eaten nothing for two days, with the exception of Mr Petersen's dress." 

 The ships were reached at eight p.m. of the 20th, and soon afterwards the 

 ship's carpenter was busy constructing a sledge, on which the largest six- 

 oared whale-boat of the " Lady Franklin " was to be dragged along the 

 shore of Wellington Channel to the open water ; while the sailmaker of the 

 " Sophia " was employed in getting ready a housing-cloth for the boat, for 

 Penny was determined that his crew should have no other shelter. The 

 sledges and boat were ready on the 4th June, and on the evening of that 

 day they were sent forward. At midnight on the 10th, Penny started to 

 follow, and in three hours came up with his sledge-party. "Working their 

 way laboriously along the land-ice of the east coast of Cornwallis Land, 

 they were surprised to hear voices inshore. Crossing from the ice to the 

 land. Penny discovered that the hail he had heard came from Mr Goodsir 

 and his party, who had travelled along thp south shore of Queen's Channel 

 to about 97° west. They had found no traces of the missing ships. Each of 

 them got a glass of spirits from the captain, and then, after a pause of not 

 more than ten minutes, each party went its way with a cheer. On the 16th, 

 a herd of deer was seen ; and Penny, halting his party, and ordering them 

 to encamp, went away after the game. " After three hours' travelling and 

 running after deer," he writes, " I ascended a high headland, and, behold ! 

 the water was within twenty miles of the boat — clear open water ! " The wind 

 for the last twenty-four hours had been blowing down channel, or from the 

 north-north-west ; and the ice had consequently been driven southward, leav- 

 ing open water away to the far north. Penny returned to the encampment, 

 and put himself into his sleeping-bag without saying a word about what he 

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