188 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820 . tents, not aware at the time that our venerable Monarch had many months 
before paid the debt of nature. 
The fog continued too thick to allow us to move till six A.M., at which 
time we resumed our journey. There was a broad and distinct haze-bow of 
very white and dazzling light directly opposite the sun. The weather being 
still too foggy to see more than a quarter of a mile a-head, it was with con- 
siderable difficulty that we could proceed on a tolerably straight course. To 
effect this, it was necessary to determine the point on which we were walking 
by the bearing of the sun, which was still visible, and the apparent time, and then 
to take a mark a-head by which our course was to be directed. Prom the thick- 
ness of the weather, however, it was necessary to repeat this operation every five 
or ten minutes, which, together with the uniform whiteness and intense glare of 
the snow, became so extremely painful to the eyes, that Mr. Fisher and myself, 
who went a-head as guides, soon became affected with snow-blindness, and 
the headmost man at the cart, whose business it was constantly to watch 
our motions, began to suffer in a similar manner, and from the same cause. 
We had now also frequent occasion to experience — what had so often occurred 
to us during the winter, — the deception occasioned in judging of the magni- 
tudes, and consequently the distances of objects, by seeing them over an un- 
varied surface of snow ; this deception was now so much increased by the 
thickness of the fog, that it frequently happened that, just as we had con- 
gratulated ourselves on having pitched upon a mark at a sufficient distance 
to relieve us from the necessity of straining our eyes .for a quarter of 
an hour, we suddenly came up to it ; and were obliged to search, and often 
in vain, for another mark, at no great distance, and subject to the same 
delusion. 
It may, perhaps, be conceived, then, under these circumstances, how 
pleasing was the relief afforded by our seeing, at eight A.M., a stripe of 
black or uncovered land a-head, which proved to be the bank of a ravine 
fifty or sixty feet deep, and three hundred yards wide, on the north side of 
which we pitched the tents, having made good only one mile and a half, 
the snow being so soft and deep as to make it difficult to drag the cart through 
it. This ravine was full of innumerable masses of sand-stone, besides which 
we could not find a single mineral substance of any other kind. By removing 
any of these, we found abundance of pure water, which tempted us to take 
this opportunity of cooking the grouse we had killed, on which we made a 
most sumptuous meal before we retired to rest. 
