OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 
215 
considered uninteresting; with this view, therefore, as well as from an 
anxious desire to do justice to the skill and humane attention displayed by 
the medical officers during the whole course of this poor man’s illness, I 
have requested Mr. Edwards to furnish me with a detailed statement of his 
case, and of the treatment adopted, which will be found in the Appendix. 
For the last two or three days, the spring-tides, which had been unusually 
high, overflowed the ice near the beach, so as to make it difficult to land 
near high water. In the general appearance of the ice of the harbour, there 
was no very perceptible alteration from day to day, though the thawing 
process was certainly going on with great rapidity at this period. The officer 
who relieved Lieutenant Hoppner, in command of the hunting party to the 
south-west, received strict injunctions to watch the ice constantly, and to 
make an immediate report of any appearance of open water in any direction. 
For the last four or five days in June, we had experienced more of southerly 
winds than usual, the weather being generally cloudy, with a good deal of 
small rain, and now and then a little snow ; the general temperature of the 
atmosphere, however, was pleasant and comfortable to our feelings, as well as 
favourable to the dissolution of the ice, for which we were so anxiously looking. 
One of Mr. Nias’s party arrived from the eastward on the morning of the 
1st of July, with a good supply of hares, ducks, and ptarmigans ; he had 
seen above fifty deer in three days, but they were too wild to allow the 
party to get near them, in a country without the smallest cover of any kind. 
Another fish was picked up to-day in a hole on the ice, of the same kind as 
those before found. 
On Sunday the 2d of July, after divine service had been performed, the 
body of the deceased was committed to the earth, on a level piece of ground 
about a hundred yards from the beach, with every solemnity which the 
occasion demanded, and the circumstances of our situation would permit. 
The ensigns and pendants were lowered half-mast during the procession, 
and the remains of our unfortunate shipmate were attended to the grave by 
every officer and man in both ships. To the performance of this last 
melancholy duty, under any circumstances sufficiently impressive, the 
peculiarity of the scene around us, and of the circumstances in which we 
were placed, could not fail to impart an additional feeling of awful solemnity, 
which it is more easy to imagine than to describe. A neat tomb-stone was 
afterwards placed at the head of the grave by Mr. Fisher, who carved iipon 
it the name of the deceased with the other usual information. 
1820. 
June. 
July. 
Sat. 1. 
Sun. 2. 
