A BEAR IN A SLEEPING-TENT. 531 



the tent-poles, and brought down the whole erection on the heads of the 

 inmates, whose terror at thus finding themselves playing at blind man's buflf 

 with a hungry and an angry bear, seems for a moment to have completely 

 paralysed them. At last, one man scrambling out of his sleeping-bag, escaped 

 from under the overthrown tent, rushed to the sledge, and returned with 

 another gun. Meantime the bear, observing the man escaping from his 

 blanket-case, and thinking perhaps that there might be more where this one 

 came from, seized the sleeping-bag with his teeth and shook and tore it vio- 

 lently. The owner of the bag, however, now approached, and with a well- 

 aimed shot, killed the monster, after which, amid much laughter, the tent 

 was pitched anew, and the light-hearted tars were soon asleep. 



Captain Ommanney had been absent from the ship sixty days, a fact 

 which of itself proves that vast improvements had been made in sledge-tra- 

 velling. The results of his journey are well stated in the concluding para- 

 graph of his report : " It is a consolation to know that we have thoroughly 

 examined all the coast within our reach, and personally explored two hun- 

 dred geographical miles of newly-discovered land. Although unsuccessful 

 in meeting with traces, my mind is firmly convinced of the impracticability 

 of any ships navigating along this coast, for these reasons — shoals extend 

 along the greater part of it, and I could see no indication of currents or tide- 

 marks ; and, from the nature of the ice, it is impossible to say what time the 

 oldest of it may have taken to accumulate, probably for many seasons ; con- 

 sequently, I entertain no hopes of ships ever reaching the continent of 

 America south-west of Cape Walker." 



But the most remarkable of the sledge journeys of Austin's expedition 

 was that performed by Lieutenant M'Clintock. Starting from the ships on 

 April 15th, he proceeded rapidly to the westward, examining the shores of 

 CornwaUis and Bathurst Islands as he advanced. At the outset, his party 

 sujffered intensely from cold. Several of the men, who were frost-bitten, 

 were sent back by the support sledges to the ships ; and in one case, morti- 

 fication set in so rapidly that the man died twenty-four hours after he had 

 been taken on board. M'Clintock reached Byam Martin Island, off Mel- 

 ville Island, on the 1st May. Here he parted with his companion officer. 

 Surgeon Bradford, who went off northward to prosecute the search along 

 the shores of Byam and Austin Channels. Bradford searched the east coast 

 of Melville Island as far north as 76° 15' N., and returned to the ships after 

 eighty days' absence. The lieutenant pushed direct west, and on the 10th 

 May, landed on the south-east point of Melville Island. He was the first 

 European that had visited that remote land since Parry left it in 1820. 

 " He was now, with his six men," says Markham, " thrown entirely on his 

 own resources, exposed to all the vicissitudes of a rigorous climate, and de- 

 pendent on his own efforts and the accidental condition of the ice for 



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