OF THE POLAR SEA. 487 



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 arti- 

 ficial horizon. My two men began to recover a little as well as my- 

 self, 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 walking. I again urged the necessity of advancing to 

 join the Commander's party, but they said they were not yet suffi- 

 ciently 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 a fire. The coruscations of the Aurora were 

 beautifully brilliant ; they served to shew us eight wolves, which we 

 had some trouble to frighten away from our collection of deer's 

 bones ; and, with their howling, and the constant cracking of the ice, 

 we did not get much rest. 



Having collected with great care, and by self-denial, two small 

 packets of dried meat or sinews, sufficient (for men who knew 

 what it was to fast) to last for eight days at the rate of one indif- 

 ferent meal per day, we prepared to set out on the 30th. I calcu- 

 lated that we should be about fourteen days in reaching Fort Provi- 

 dence ; and, allowing that we neither killed deer nor found Indians, 

 we could but be unprovided with food six days, and this we heeded 

 not whilst the prospect of obtaining full relief was before us. Ac- 

 cordingly we set out against a keen north-east wind, in order to gain 

 the known route to Fort Providence. We saw a number of wolves 

 and some crows on the middle of the lake, and supposing such an 

 assembly was not met idly, we made for them, and came in for a 

 share of a deer, which they had killed a short time before, and thus 

 added a couple of meals to our stock. By four P.M. we gained the 

 head of the lake, or the direct road to Fort Providence, and some 

 dry wood being at hand, we encamped ; by accident it was the same 



