ADVENTUKES BY LAND AND SEA 



feeling that nature was favoring us, we made good use of 

 our time. As we followed the coast in a south-westerly direc- 

 tion, the outline of Marble Island could be seen against the 

 southern sky; while to the north extended the bold, dark 

 coast-line of rock, unbroken in appearance excepting where 

 here and there lay great banks of snow. 



About noon we discovered, on landing, what must very 

 recently have been a large Eskimo encampment. Several 

 komi ticks (sleds) and other articles were found. The wreck 

 of a large whale-boat lay on the shore, and several dogs were 

 seen lurking about. This camping-place was the summer 

 home of the Eskimos we had met sailing up Chesterfield 

 Inlet, and from a sanitary point of view was no credit to 

 them, for filth and putrefaction everywhere abounded. 



The rocks of this locality were of an interesting character, 

 being dark green hornblendic schists of the Huronian for- 

 mation. 



Following these two days of exceptionally fair weather we 

 enjoyed still another, and were permitted to traverse the 

 mouth of Rankin Inlet, which would have required two or 

 three days to coast had the weather been anything but calm. 

 During these three days we had made a distance of just one 

 hundred miles, which, upon such an exposed coast, we con- 

 sidered good progress. 



Though we saw little game, we still had some dried meat 

 left, and at this rate of travel two weeks would take us to 

 Churchill. By carefully rationing ourselves we had meat 

 enough to last for five or six days, and the balance of the 

 time could, if necessary, be spent without provisions. 



On the night of the 15th, however, being camped upon a 

 little sand island in the mouth of Corbet's Inlet, our hopes 

 were blighted by the approach of a gale, and all the next day 

 we lay imprisoned upon the sand-bar without any fresh water 

 to drink. Toward evening the wind was accompanied by a 

 chilling rain, which continued all night and the greater part 



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