350 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



■*®22. upon the ice, we set out for the ships, steering by a pocket-compass, as the 

 v^r^ weather was too thick to allow us to see them. Passing several ' lanes ' of 

 water, one of them of considerable breadth, and observing several places in 

 which the ice had been thrown up by pressure, we came, at half-past one 

 P.M. to a broad lane, with the ice in motion on the opposite side. As 

 the direction of the ships was still uncertain, we halted here to dine, and 

 obtaining a sight of them soon after, in a clearer interval, again set out. At 

 four, the Fury made the signal of having discovered us, and at seven 

 o'clock, being met by a fresh party, we arrived on board." 



Mr. Bushnan remarked, in the course of this journey, that though in 

 some places, and particularly at the head of Whyte Inlet, the vegetation was 

 remarkably abundant, yet the plants were singularly backward and dwarfish, 

 and flowers rare ; which remark was also made by most of our other tra- 

 vellers. The Esquimaux huts at the 1 d of Whyte Inlet, Mr. Bushnan 

 describes as being one round, and the o.xier rectangular; the latter, which 

 was the largest, being seven feet in length, and five in breadth. They were 

 made with large slabs of sandstone, and had every appearance of having 

 been winter residences. 



Sun. 15. The weather continuing very thick with small snow, and there being now 

 every reason to suppose a final disruption of the fixed ice at hand, I deter- 

 mined to provide against the danger to which, at night, this long-wished-for 

 event would expose the ships, by adopting a plan that had often before oc- 

 curred to me, as likely to prove beneficial in unknown and critical navigation 

 such as this. This was nothing more than the establishment of a temporary 

 light-house on shore during the night, which, in case of our getting adrift, 

 would, together with the soundings, afford us that security which the slug- 

 gish traversing of the compasses otherwise rendered extremely doubtful. 

 For this purpose, two steady men, provided with a tent and blankets, were 

 landed on the east point of Amherst Island at sunset, to keep up some 

 bright lights during the eight hours of darkness, and to be sent for at daylight 



Mon. 16. in the morning. On the 16th the north-west wind continued, but no alteration 

 whatever took place in the ice. Small snow was almost constantly falling 

 during the day, which once more, and permanently for the winter, as it 

 afterwards proved, covered those parts of the land that the late fine weather 



