109 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1819 . wadding-tilt, with which waggons are usually covered; and thus was formed 
a comfortable shelter from the snow and wind. The boats, spars, running 
rigging, and sails, were removed on shore, in order to give as much room as 
possible on our upper deck, to enable the people to take exercise on board, 
whenever the weather should be too inclement for walking on shore. It was 
absolutely necessary, also, for the preservation of our sails and ropes, all of 
which were hard-frozen, that they should be kept in that state till the return 
of spring; for, as it was now impossible to get them dried, owing to 
the constantly low temperature of the atmosphere, they would, probably, 
have soon rotted had they been kept in any part of the ships, where the 
warmth would occasion them to thaw ; they were, therefore, placed with the 
boats on shore, and a covering of canvass fixed over them. This covering, 
however, as we afterwards found, might better have been dispensed with; 
for as we had not the means of constructing a roof sufficiently tight to keep 
out the fine snow which fell during the winter, it only served, by the eddy 
wind which it created, to make the drift about it greater; and, I have 
now no doubt that, with stores in the' state in which I have described our 
sails to be, it would be better simply to lay them on some spars to keep 
them off the ground, allowing the snow to cover them as it fell. For want of 
experience in these matters, we also took a great deal of unnecessary trouble 
in carrying the anchors over the ice to the beach, with an idea of securing 
the ships to the shore at the breaking up of the ice in the spring ; a precau- 
tion for which there was not the smallest occasion, and by which the cables 
suffered unnecessary exposure during the winter. 
As soon as the ships were secured and housed over, my undivided attention 
was in the next place directed to the comfort of the officers and men, and to 
the preservation of that extraordinary degree of health which we had hitherto 
enjoyed in both ships, A few brief remarks on this subject by Mr. Edwards, 
(to whose skill and advice, as well as humane and unremitting attention 
to the few sick, on all occasions, I am much indebted,) I need make no 
apology for offering, in his own words: — “ On our arrival in our winter quar- 
ters, after a season sufficiently harassing both to officers and men, it was 
pleasing to reflect on the excellent health they had experienced throughout. 
On our passage across the Atlantic, indeed, a few ephemeral complaints, 
arising from wet and cold, appeared among the men, but these were so 
slight as to be scarcely worthy of notice ; and, since our arrival within the 
Polar circle, a period of between two and three months, not a single medical 
