MY BROTHER’S LAKE. 
207 
wanderers of the ice should rejoice in sports and play¬ 
things like the children of our own smiling sky, and 
that parents should fashion for them toy sledges, and 
harpoons, and nets, miniature emblems of a life of 
suffering and peril! how strange this joyous merri¬ 
ment under the monitory shadow of these jagged ice- 
cliffs! My spirit was oppressed as I imagined the 
possibility of our tarrying longer in these frozen 
regions; but it was ordinary life with these other 
children of the same Creator, and they were playing 
as unconcerned as the birds that circled above our 
heads. “Fear not, therefore: ye are of more value 
than many sparrows.” 
I do not wonder that the scene at the lake impressed 
my brother when lie visited it on his errand of rescue : 
Lieutenant Hartstene and he were the only white men, 
except myself, that have ever seen it. 
A body of ice, resplendent in the sunshine, was 
enclosed between thd lofty walls of black basalt; and 
from its base a great archway or tunnel poured out 
a dashing stream into the lake, disturbing its quiet 
surface with a horse-slioe of foam. Birds flew about in 
myriads, and the green sloping banks were checquered 
with the purple lychnis and Arctic chickweeds. 
I have named this lake after my brother, for it was 
near its shores that, led by Myouk, he stumbled on 
the summer tents of the natives and obtained the 
evidence of our departure south. I built a large cairn 
here, and placed within it a copper penny, on which 
was scratched the letter K; but, like many other 
