15 
sickness or old age, to become food for the foxes, who had rendered the skeleton 
incomplete by walking off with most of the ribs and long bones to feast off at 
their leisure. All that remained I collected, and we returned to the tent through 
a heavy hail-storm and densely overcast sky, with thick mist, and the thermo- 
meter at 25°. Saw some red-throated divers on one of the largest lakes, two 
tern, and the track of a fox. In the afternoon, the wind shifting round to the 
westward, and the weather somewhat moderating though still very squally, I set 
about making preparations for our sledging journey; the wind now setting 
directly up the bay, packing the ice so close as to render any attempt with the 
boat utterly hopeless. Having stowed the sledge with four days' provisions, we 
dug a trench and made a cache of the remainder of our provisions, filling it up 
with shingle as a protection against the bears during our absence. The boat was 
hauled up on the second ridge on which the tent stood, and turned bottom-up, 
with the gear and spare clothes stowed underneath, as a precaution against high 
tides, which might probably rise higher than usual under the influence of heavy 
westerly gales. 
Thursday 26th. — I was stirring at 3 a.m. Morning gloomy and overcast, 
with snow. Wind round to the eastward and moderated. Thermometer 24°. 
Walked down to the lakes where I shot the ducks ; it had frozen over during 
the night ; took a sketch of the encampment from it. Three or four snow bunt- 
ings {Emberiza nivalis) were flitting about on the ridge above the tent, saluting 
us with their lively cheerful note. Yesterday a red-throated diver was shot on 
one of the lakes by one of our party. At 5 a.m., I roused out the boat's crew, 
and we had our chocolate, biscuit, and bacon breakfast. 
The progressive fall in the temperature, with the rapid formation of young 
ice, together with the boisterous north-westerly gales, which had packed the 
broken up winter's floe upon the shore in front of our tent, forming a belt of 
hummocks and sludge half a mile in breadth, and daily increasing in extent, 
cutting us off from the open water, and requiring only a few calm days to cement 
it altogether, and render the present position of the boat inextricable, were 
unmistakeable signs that the season for boating operations was past ; and so soon 
as a southerly wind from off the land should drive the ice out, no time was to be 
lost in getting her into the open channel. All, therefore, that now remained 
to be done was to complete the exploration of this bay by an overland journey. 
5 4 
