OF THE POLAR SEA. 



181 



I have little now to add to the melan- 

 choly detail into which I felt it proper to 

 enter ; but I cannot omit to state that the 

 unremitting care and attentions of our kind 

 friends, Mr. M'Vicar and Mr. M'Auley, 

 united with our improved diet, to promote 

 to the restoration of our health ; so that, 

 by the end of February, the swellings of 

 our limbs, which had returned upon us, en- 

 tirely subsided, and we were able to walk 

 to any part of the island. Our appetites 

 gradually moderated, and we nearly re- 

 gained our ordinary state of body before 

 the spring. Hepburn alone suffered from 

 a severe attack of rheumatism, which con- 

 fined him to his bed for some weeks. The 

 usual symptoms of spring having appeared, 

 on the 25th of May we prepared to embark 

 for Fort Chipewyan. Fortunately, on the 

 following morning, a canoe arrived from 

 that place with the whole of the stores 

 which we required for the payment of 

 Akaitcho and the hunters. It was ex- 

 tremely gratifying to us to be thus enabled, 



