80 
REINDEER FEEDING-GROUNDS. 
the provisions arranged, before we can leave our com¬ 
rades. When we three leave the brig, there will not 
be a single able man on board. McGary is able to 
leave his bed and stump about a little; but this is all. 
Need the dear home-folks, who may some day read 
this, wonder that I am a little careworn, and that I 
leave the brig with reluctance? Of we three God-sup¬ 
ported men, each has his own heavy load of scurvy. 
“March 23, Friday.—We started this morning, over¬ 
worked and limping, rather as men ending a journey 
than beginning one. After four hours of forced walk¬ 
ing, we reached the reindeer feeding-grounds, but were 
too late: the animals had left at least two hours before 
our arrival. An extensive rolling country, rather a 
lacustrine plain than a true plateau, was covered with 
traces of life. The snow had been turned up in patches 
of four or live yards in diameter, by the hoofs of the 
reindeer, over areas of twenty or fifty acres. The ex¬ 
tensive levels were studded with them; and wherever 
we examined the ground-surface it was covered with 
grasses and destitute of lichens. We scouted it over 
the protruding syenites, and found a couple of ptar¬ 
migan and three hares: these Ave secured. 
“Our little party reached the brig in the evening, 
after a walk over a heavy snoAV-lined country of thirty 
miles. Nevertheless, I had a walk full of instructive 
material. The frozen channel of Mary River abounds 
in noble sections and scenes of splendid wildness and 
desolation. I am too tired to epitomize here my note¬ 
book’s record; but I may say that the opportunity 
