OF THE POLAR SEA. 



83 



then of anxiety alone. At day-light we 

 shook off the snow which was heaped upon 

 us, and endeavoured to kindle a fire; but 

 the violence of the storm defeated all our 

 attempts. At length two Indians arrived, 

 with whose assistance we succeeded, and 

 they took possession of it, to show their 

 sense of our obligations to them. We were 

 ashamed of the scene before us; the en- 

 trails of the moose and its young, which 

 had been buried at our feet, bore testimony 

 to the\iocturnal revel of the wolves, during 

 the time we had slept. This was a fresh 

 subject of derision for the Indians, whose 

 appetites, however, would not suffer them 

 to waste long upon us a time so precious. 

 They soon finished what the wolves had 

 begun, and with as little aid from the art 

 of cookery, eating both the young moose, 

 and the contents of the paunch, raw. 



I had scarcely secured myself by a lodge 

 of branches from the snow, and placed the 

 moose in a position for my sketch, when we 

 were stormed by a troop of women and 

 children, with their sledges and dogs. We 

 g 2 



