OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
109 
they had not been drinking too freely. To those who have been much ac- 1819. 
customed to cold countries this will be no new remark ; but I cannot help 
thinking (and it is with this view that I speak of it) that many a man may have 
been punished for intoxication, who was only suffering from the benumbing 
effects of frost ; for I have more than once seen our people in a state so 
exactly resembling that of the most stupid intoxication, that I should cer- 
tainly have charged them with that offence, had I not been quite sure that 
no possible means were afforded them on Melville Island, to procure 
any thing stronger than snow-water. In order to guard in some measure 
against the danger of persons losing their way, which was more and more to 
be apprehended as the days became shorter, and the ground more covered 
with snow, which gives such a dreary sameness to the country, we erected 
on all the hills within two or three miles of the harbour, finger-posts pointing 
towards the ships. 
I have before remarked that all the water which we made use of while within 
the polar circle, was procured from snow, either naturally or artificially dis- 
solved. Soon after the ships were laid up for the winter, it was necessary to 
have recourse entirely to the latter process, which added materially to the 
expenditure of fuel during the winter months. The snow for this purpose 
was dug out of the drifts, which had formed upon the ice round the ships, 
and dissolved in the coppers. We found it necessary always to strain the 
water thus procured, on account of the sand which the heavy snow-drifts 
brought from the island, after which it was quite pure and wholesome. 
On the evening of the 13th, the Aurora Borealis was seen very faintly, Wecl. 13. 
consisting of a stationary white light in the south-west quarter, and near the 
horizon. 
On the 15th, we saw the last covey of ptarmigan which were met with Frid. i5. 
this season. On the same day our people fell in with a herd of fifteen deer 
to the southward; they were all lying down at first, except one large one, 
probably a stag, which afterwards seemed to guard the rest in their flight, 
going frequently round them, and sometimes striking them with his horns 
to make them go on, which otherwise they did not seem much inclined to do. 
On the 16th, it blew a strong gale from the northward, accompanied by Sat. 16 . 
such a constant snow-drift, that although the weather was quite clear over- 
head, the boat-house, at the distance of three or four hundred yards, could 
scarcely be seen from the ships. On such occasions, no person was per- 
mitted on any account to leave the ships. Indeed, when this snow-drift 
