DANGEKOUS TIDES. 



415 



jected to making the attempt, asserting that there would be diffi- 

 culty in doing it, owing to the shallow water and the tides. I 

 now knew that he was right, and I well understood why the In- 

 nuits dreaded the trip, and held back. In commemoration of our 

 providential escape, I called this place " Preservation Island." 



We remained on that island six hours, and at 6 P.M. resumed 

 our trip. I found that the tide was quite eight feet higher when 

 we left than when we put in to our place of refuge. How it could 

 be so, and still be rushing past the island with such velocity that 

 little headway could be made against it, I can not explain. When 

 the tide turned from ebb to flood we could see it coming in afar 

 off. Its roar was like that of the sea raging in a storm. On it 

 came with great volume and velocity. A person situated mid- 

 way between some of the islands about there when a flood tide is 

 commencing would have to run at full five miles an hour to es- 

 cape being overwhelmed. The flood tide, indeed, seemed even 

 swifter than the ebb. How long and anxiously I stood on Pres- 

 ervation Island, watching that incoming of the mighty waters ! 

 How I gazed at the boiling and the seething,- the whirlpools — 

 waterfalls — mill-races made by the tide as it rushed along ! The 

 sun was fast sinking behind the mountains of Kingaite, and the 

 air was becoming cold. I once thought we should have to stay 

 there for the night, but it was evident that such a course would be 

 our destruction, as the island would undoubtedly be submerged 

 at high water. Waiting, therefore, would not do ; and, according- 

 ly, we pushed off at the time I have mentioned. 



My continued illness made me almost incapable of exertion ; 

 yet it was necessary to work, and to work hard. I steered the 

 boat, and also aided Tunukderlien at the oar nearest me. I had 

 constantly to keep a good look-out ahead for shoals. These, how- 

 ever, were foam-crested, showing where danger was to be avoided. 

 And thus on we went, pulling rapidly down to the point of des- 

 tination under difficulties that few can understand. Darkness 

 coming on, our bark a frail boat, our crew Innuit women, and 

 myself almost incapacitated by illness, it is easier to imagine than 

 to describe my feelings while we were thus making the passage 

 from the head of Frobisher Bay to the place where our whole 

 party had to encamp. 



Suzhi was so powerful at her oar that she often pulled the boat 

 half round, and I had to guard against this by my twenty-two 

 feet steering-oar. But all were earnest in the endeavor to reach 



