414 A JOURNEY TO THE SHORES 



but in clearing the snow to pitch the tents we found a quantity of 

 Iceland moss, which was boiled for supper. This weed, not having 

 been soaked, proved so bitter, that few of the party could eat more 

 than a few spoonfuls of it. 



Our blankets did not suffice this evening to keep us in tolerable 

 warmth ; the slightest breeze seeming to pierce through our debili- 

 tated frames. The reader will, probably, be desirous to know how 

 we passed our time in such a comfortless situation: the first 

 operation after encamping was to thaw our frozen shoes, if a 

 sufficient fire could be made, and dry ones were put on ; each 

 person then wrote his notes of the daily Occurrences, and evening 

 prayers were read ; as soon as supper was prepared it was eaten, 

 generally in the dark, and we went to bed, and kept up a cheerful 

 conversation until our blankets were thawed by the heat of our 

 bodies, and we had gathered sufficient warmth to enable us to fall 

 asleep. On many nights we had not even the luxury of going to 

 bed in dry clothes, for when the fire was insufficient to dry our 

 shoes, we durst not venture to pull them off, lest they should freeze 

 so hard as to be unfit to put on in the morning, and, therefore, 

 inconvenient to carry. 



On the 20th we got into a hilly country, and the marching 

 became much more laborious, even the stoutest experienced great 

 difficulty in climbing the craggy eminences. Mr. Hood was parti- 

 cularly weak, and was obliged to relinquish his station of second in 

 the line, which Dr. Richardson now took, to direct the leading man 

 in keeping the appointed course. I was also unable to keep pace 

 with the men, who put forth their utmost speed, encouraged by 

 the hope, which our reckoning had led us to form, of seeing Point 

 Lake in the evening, but we were obliged to encamp without 

 gaining a view of it. We had not seen either deer or their tracks 

 through the day, and this circumstance, joined to the disappoint- 

 ment of not discovering the lake, rendered our voyagers very 



