17 
Sketched by R. irCormiclc, H.N. 
Owen Point Encampment, North Point of Baring Bay, bearing E.S.E. (Magnetic). 
At 5,30 P.M. filled our kettle with water from a neighbouring lake, and 
having boiled it over the spirit lamp of the " Etna," made tea under the lee of 
the sledge, in the midst of this wilderness of snow. Cape Osborn with Eden 
Point bore N.N.W. At 6.30 p.m. started again, and at 7 p-m. when some 
distance ahead of the sledge, pioneering the way, as was my custom, I came 
suddenly upon the track of the musk ox, close to one of those numerous 
running streams, by which the chain of lakelets studding these marshy flats, 
empty themselves into the bay. The animal appears to have attempted crossing 
over the frozen surface of the stream, but finding that the ice, which was broken 
by his two fore feet, would not bear his weight, retreated, crossing his own 
track in the direction of the hills, bounding the horizon to the southward. From 
the appearance of the foot-prints (which measured five inches, both in length 
and in breadth) it must have passed very recently, as there was a driving snow- 
drift at the time, which would soon have effaced the impressions. These foot 
prints, when taken in connexion with the two skulls recently found, afford, I 
think, indisputable evidence that the musk ox is an inhabitant of North Devon, 
at least, during the summer months ; and is, probably, now migrating to the 
soutliAvard for the winter. But their course thitherward, and how they get 
across Barrow Strait, is not so easily explained ; they must, at all events, wait 
till the Strait is frozen over. 
The black point, with its rounded snowy top, in which the ridge of hills 
environing the bay, terminates to the northward, and which we have had in 
sight so many hours, as the goal to be reached before we pitched the tent for 
the night, has for several miles appeared at the same distance, or, as the sledge's 
crew would have it, receding, as mile after mile, with weary and jaded steps, 
tltey toiled along, dragging after them the cumbrous sledge, and still the dark 
point appeared no nearer. Fairly exhausted, they were compelled to take more 
frequent spells to rest for a few minutes. The night, however, looked so threat- 
ening, the northern sky intensely black and lowering, — premonitory signs of the 
■wind going back to its old stormy quarter, — that I was very anxious to secure the 
shelter of the point ahead for pitching the tent under, as in the exposed, Avide, 
and bleak w^aste around us, the canvass and poles supporting it would scarcely 
have withstood the violence of the strong gusts of wind. 
The dark sky was preceded by a very remarkably-tinted horizon in the north, 
in which streaks of a fine olive green, alternating with bands of an amber colour, 
and a rich chestnut brown zone, intersected horizontally ; the side of the hills 
about Prince Alfred Bay, crested by a dark neutral tint, vanishing into a Icck- 
green. When, within about a mile of the point, to encourage my slcdgc-crcw, 
and convince them that we were, in reality, now drawing near it, I walked on 
ahead at a quickened pace and ascended to the summit; and, on descending again 
to the extreme rugged point, I found them pitching the tent on the shingle-ridge 
beneath. It was exactly midnight, and thick Aveather Avith fine snoAV. A fire 
was soon lighted, tea prepared, and bacon and biscuit served out for supper. It 
C 
