INVOLUNTARY EXPATRIATION. 
485 
the shore. The last who did so was found frozen stiff 
on the beach, his float attached to his person. It was 
to the north of Uppernavik. 
I had heard stories of the voluntary expatriation ol" 
some of these poor people. It was said that men who 
had been missing for years were found afterward in 
the neighborhood of Cape Walsingham, having made 
the transit of the bay on the ice in' midwinter. But 
I believe it to be a libel, and that Home is home even 
to a Greenlander, Mr. Zimmel, the inspector for the 
time at Egedesminde, told me that the ice between 
Cape Walsingham and Holsteinberg, and above, is 
never absolutely fast. Sometimes, he said, it was so 
impacted against the coast as to appear continuous, 
and upon a change of wind afterward would drive 
across the bay, so as to open on the one shore and close 
on the other. 
This occasional tendency of the ice-raft to float 
across the bay has given rise to some fearful accidents. 
It would be difficult for fiction to exceed some of 
the stories that are well authenticated of these poor 
nomads. 
Esquimaux who have gone out with kayack or 
sledge have been mourned as dead. Years afterward 
messages have come by the whalers of their safety in 
the unknown regions of the West, and of their adop- 
tion there ; but after trials too fearful to be recounted. 
Some years ago — the year was mentioned, but I have 
forgot it — a couple of Esquimaux, relatives, set out on 
a sledge in quest of seal. The great ice-plain formed 
one continuous sheet from the Greenland shore as far 
as the eye could reach. During the night, one of 
them, awaking from a heavy sleep, found that the wind 
had shifted to the eastward. It was blowing gently, 
