14 
ward, rendering the navigation of the Welhngton Channel extremely dangerous 
for boats at a late and boisterous season of the year. 1 saw a flock of geese on 
the passage here, and another arose from a lake on our arrival. A small frag- 
ment of drift wood was picked up on the hill. After spreading all our wet 
clothes on the shingle to dry, everything in the boat having been drenched with 
sea water, we had tea and preserved beef for supper, and turned in at midnight, 
truly thankful to God for our providential escape. Therm. 27°. 
Tuesday, 24th. — Breakfasted at 8.30 a.m. As it was still bloAving a north- 
westerly gale, preventing our attempting anything iurther with the boat, I 
started at 11.30 a.m., accompanied by one of the boat's crew, on an excm'sion 
along shore, with the view of ascertaining the state of the ice, and selecting the 
best route for sledging round the top of the bay should a continuance of the 
present boisterous weather render boating operations wholly impracticable. 
On passing a small lake about a quarter of a mile from the encampment, we 
saw tAvo eider ducks {Anas mollissima) with eight young ones swimming on it. 
I shot the whole of the broods and one of the old ducks, the other made its 
escape. Our course at first lay over flat, swampy, boggy ground covered with 
snow, through which a few stragghng tufts of moss, lichens, saxifrages, poppies, 
and a small species of juncus made their appearance at intervals ; the whole inter- 
sected by very low narrow ridges of shingle and a chain of small lakes. The 
winter's floe had all the appearance of having been recently broken up by the 
late gales setting a heavy swell into the bay, which had ground it into fragments 
and hummocks mixed with sludge. A thick fog coming on, accompanied by 
snow drift sweeping over the bay from the northward, and concealing the out- 
line of its shores, I struck across the low land for the ridge of hills which bounds 
it inland, passing several isolated masses of rock which, as they appeared through 
the snow at a distance, so much resembled piles of stones artificially heaped up, 
that dv/elling, as our thoughts constantly did, on cairns and memorials, we were 
frequently — until the eye became familiar with these deceptions — induced to 
diverge from our course to examine them. On ascending the ridge we followed 
it back to the head of the inlet (south of our encampment), which is nearly two 
miles deep, and narrow at its entrance, being not more than about a quarter of a 
mile in breadth, but expanding out to double that width. We walked round 
several lakes on the ridge of hills, and heard the monotonous mournful cry of 
the red-throated divers ( Colymhus septentrionalis) in the vicinity, but the fog, 
had become so thick as to conceal them from view. On descending from the 
ridge down a terminal black cliff inland of the tent, we had to make head against 
the gale, v/hich drove the cutting snow-drift in our faces with the thermometer 
at 29°. We reached the encampment at 5 p.m., having only had a shot at a tern, 
and seen the track of a fox. The ice-quartermaster and another of the boat's 
crew returned soon after us from a ramble round the other side of the inlet, 
having found the skeleton of a bear. 
Wednesday, 25th. — Rose at 6 a.m. ; no improvement in the weather ; a quantity 
of sludge ice driven in shore, which vv^as fast beginning to be cemented together 
by the formation of young ice, forming an impassable belt for our boat, in front 
of the encampment. Still too thick and boisterous for boating or sledging. 
After breakfast I visited the small lake again, and shot three ducks out of a 
flock of eight young pintails [Anas caudacuta). After my return to the tent 
with them, one of the boat's crew killed the remaining five. We had some of 
them for dinner, and found them excellent eating. Saw two or three sandpipers 
and w^ounded an Arctic gull {Lestris parasiticus), but notwithstanding that the 
thumb, or tip of the wing was broken, it succeeded in getting away. 
1 v/alked afterwards to the top of the west inlet, accompanied by two of my 
party, in search of the remains of the skeleton of the bear, they having on first 
finding it brought back with them the skull and pelvis. After a long search, we 
at lust hit upon the spot, where a rib was projecting from the snow, beneath 
which we found most of the A^ertcbra}, deeply imbedded m the richest bed of 
moss v/e liad yet seen, the result, doubtless of the manure arising from the 
decomposition of the animal's carcase ; although from the bleached appearance 
and honey-combed state of the bones, a long scries of winter snows would seem 
to have mantled f)ver them since Bruin dragged his huge unwieldy frame a few 
yards al>ovc the head of the inlet to breathy his last on terra firma, v^diether in 
