LIFE OR DEATH ? 201 
After launching the two canoes it was with great 
danger and difficulty we were able to force a way 
through the broken but heavy shore-ice to the open 
water beyond. Having once gotten clear, we were 
able to make good progress, and even at great risk of 
being smashed upon some of the many rocks, we paddled 
far into the night; but at a late hour, being sheathed in 
ice from the freezing spray, we landed, and, without 
supper, lay down to sleep upon the snow. 
Eight more dreary days passed, six of which were 
spent in battling with the elements and two in lying 
storm-stayed in our tents. During this interval our 
party suffered much from cold and lack of food, and to 
make matters worse, dysentery attacked us, and it ap- 
peared as if one of our men would die. 
The ice had been all the while forming, rendering it 
more and more difficult to launch or get ashore. Our 
frail crafts were being badly battered, and often were 
broken through by the ice, and the low character of 
the coast had not improved. Still with hollow cheeks 
and enfeebled strength we struggled on, sometimes 
making fair progress and at others very little, until on 
October the 14th, as we advanced, the ice became so 
heavy, and extended so far out to sea, that in order to 
clear it we had to go quite out of sight of land. 
Towards evening we began to look about for some 
opportunity of going ashore, but nothing could be seen 
before us but a vast field of ice with occasional pro- 
truding boulders. We pushed on, hoping to find some 
bluff point or channel of water by which we might 
reach the shore, but the appearance of things did not 
change in the slightest. We stood up in the canoes or 
