7G8 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



here ; for when it is blowing hard the snow comes like flour with the wind. Whether 

 the snow falls or the wind takes it up from the ice I cannot tell ; but it is so fine and 

 thick jou cannot see. There is no leaving the hut in such weather, as the snow is 

 always either drifting or falling, with the blow, no matter from what quarter. All 

 well but me. I have a slight touch of the scurvy ; but, please God, it will soon leave 

 me. We hope when this blow is over, we shall see land and have a little open water. 

 lih. — Hans caught a seal, and fired at a narwhaL Joe shot and killed a big fel- 

 low, but could not get hira. He turned belly up and sank. He would have been 

 food for a month. There were a great many of them going north. It is their time of 

 the year. %th. — A pretty large crack around the floe. Shot five narwhals to-day, 

 but could not get them, as they got away under the ice. Joe said a large fleet of 

 them were going north, but could not find water, and so came back again. We can- ^ 

 not find any seals when they are about. Joe says the seals are not afraid of the nar- 

 whals ; but I think they are. \^ih. — Saw plenty of narwhals, I wish they would go 

 away; they frighten the seals away, which we are so badly in want of. Our provisions 

 are getting low. When you take a glass and look around, you see the ice in the dis- 

 tance piled as high as a ship's mast, so that it seems impossible to travel over it — cer- 

 tainly not with a boat. No land to be seen yet. We want water to escape. \%th. — The 

 welcome cry this morning was, *' land ho !" to westward, Cape Walsingham. Now 

 we will be out of the narrows. The straits commence to widen here, so that we can 

 travel fast if we cannot reach land. I've caught a small seal to-day. 24^A. — Can see 

 the land, but cannot start. Such a quantity of light snow has fallen, and you sink 

 into it so that it would be impossible to get the boat through it. Land is twenty 

 miles off", I should say, and we appear to be leaving it. My advice is to start for it. 

 We seem to have left the sealing ground. We cannot catch anything to speak of, and 

 we have only three weeks' provisions left. Captain Tyson and some of the men are 

 afraid to venture in shore, and unwilling to leave the boat ; so we have made up our 

 minds to stay, come down in our provisions, and trust in God, hoping we may come 

 on better sealing ground. I asked the Esquimaux what they would do if they had 

 not us to influence them. They told me they would start for land directly they saw 

 it. They do not like to speak their minds openly for fear something would happen, 

 meaning that they would be blamed for it ; so they are silent following only the advice 

 and opinions of others. Joe caught a very small seal, which is the eighth this month. 

 He is very much to be praised, so is his wife Hannah. We may thank them and God 

 for our lives and the good health we are in. We could never have gotten thus far 

 without them. If we ever get out of this difficulty, they can never be paid too much. 

 28<A. — Followed up a bear track, but at a crack lost it, where he broke through the 

 young ice and swam across. Shot a meal of dovekies, a kind of small bird, to-day, 

 which we will have for breakfast to-morrow morning. Saw some seals to-day, but 

 could not get them. Thermometer 28 to 23 degrees below zero." 



*' March 2d. — To-day God has sent us food in abundance. Joe shot an oogchook^ 

 one of the largest kind of seals ; plenty of meat and oil, and forty-two dovekies. 

 1th. — Immense icebergs all around the floe. There was a fearful noise all last night, 

 which kept us all awake. The floe was cracking, splitting and working with a noise 

 like a park of artillery and musketry. I expected to see it split into a thousand pieces 

 every moment. Every man is complaining of headache from eating oogchook liver 



