WELCOMED BY FRIENDS. 



603 



myriads of eider had made their breeding-ground. They re- 

 mained three days in this crystal retreat, and gathered three 

 thousand eggs. They doubled Cape Dudley Digges on the 11th 

 of June, and spent a week at Providence Halt, luxuriating on 

 a dish composed of birds sweeter and juicier than canvas-backs 

 and a salad made of raw eggs and cochlearia. The coast now 

 trended to the east ; the wide expanse of Melville Bay lay 

 between them and Upernavik, — that Danish outpost of civiliza- 

 tion. The party was at one moment in the actual agonies of 

 starvation, when a lucky shot at a sleeping seal saved them 

 from the dreaded extremity. They soon saw a kayak — a native 

 boat — in which one Paul Zacharias was seeking eider-dor^ 



SEEKING EIDER DOWN. 



among the islands. Not long after, the single mast of a smaL' 

 shallop — the Upernavik oil-boat — loomed up through the fog. 

 They landed the next day in the midst of a crowd of children, 

 and drank coffee that night before hospitable Danish firesides. 



