ESQUIMAUX HUTS. 
147 
“Morton went out on Friday to reclaim the things 
they had left; and to-day at 1 p.m. he returned suc¬ 
cessful. He reached the wreck of the former party, 
making nine miles in three hours,—pushed on six 
miles farther on the Ice-foot,—then camped for the 
night; and, making a sturdy march the next day 
without luggage, reached the huts, and got back to his 
camp to sleep. This journey of his was, we then 
thought, really an achievement,—sixty-two miles in 
three marches, with a mean temperature of 40° below 
zero, and a noonday so dark that you could hardly see 
a hummock of ice fifty paces ahead. 
“Under more favoring circumstances, Bonsall, Mor¬ 
ton, and myself made eighty-four miles in three con¬ 
secutive marches. I go for the system of forced 
marches on journeys that are not over a hundred and 
fifty miles. A practised walker unencumbered by 
weight does twenty miles a day nearly as easily as 
ten: it is the uncomfortable sleeping that wears a 
party out. 
“Morton found no natives; but he saw enough to 
satisfy me that the huts could not have been deserted 
long before we came to this region. The foxes had 
been at work upon the animal remains that we found 
there, and the appearances which we noted of recent 
habitation had in a great degree disappeared. Where 
these Esquimaux have travelled to is matter for con¬ 
jecture. The dilapidated character of the huts we 
have seen farther to the north seems to imply that 
they cannot have gone in that direction. They have 
