OF THE POLAR SEA. 



173 



the men to cover the body of our departed 

 companion Beauparlant with the trunks and 

 branches of trees, which they did ; and 

 shortly after their return I opened his 

 bundle, and found it contained two papers 

 of vermilion, several strings of beads, some 

 fire-steels, flints, awls, fish-hooks, rings, 

 linen, and the glass of an artificial horizon. 

 My two men began to recover a little as 

 well as myself, though I was by far the 

 weakest of the three ; the soles of my feet 

 were cracked all over, and the other parts 

 were as hard as horn, from constant walk- 

 ing. I again urged the necessity of ad- 

 vancing to join the Commander's party, but 

 they said, they were not sufficiently strong. 



On the 27th we discovered the remains 

 of a deer, on which we feasted. The night 

 was unusually cold, and ice formed in a 

 pint-pot within two feet of the fire. The 

 coruscations of the Aurora were beautifully 

 brilliant ; they served to show us eight 

 wolves, which we had some trouble to 

 frighten away from our collection of deer's 

 bones ; and, between their howling and the 



