A T T EMPT TO E M B A Ii K. 
253 
how, under bold and cautious guidance, they might 
reach there in a few seasons of patient march. I gave 
them drawings of the coast, with its headlands and 
hunting-grounds, as far as Cape Shackleton, and its 
best camping-stations from Red Head to the Danish 
settlements. 
They listened with breathless interest, closing their 
circle round me; and, as Petersen described the big 
ussuk, the white whale, the bear, and the long open- 
water hunts with the kayak and the rifle, they looked 
at each other with a significance not to be misunder¬ 
stood. They would anxiously have had me promise 
that I would some day return and carry a load of them 
down to the settlements; and I shall not wonder if— 
guided perhaps by Hans—they hereafter attempt the 
journey without other aid. 
This was our parting. A letter which I addressed, 
at the moment of reaching the settlements, to the 
Lutheran Missions, the tutelar society of the Esqui¬ 
maux of Greenland, will attest the sincerity of my 
professions and my willingness to assist in giving them 
effect. It will be found in the Appendix. 
It was in the soft subdued light of a Sunday even¬ 
ing, June 17, that, after hauling our boats with much 
hard labor through the hummocks, we stood beside 
the open sea-way. Before midnight we had launched 
the Red Eric, and given three cheers foi Henry 
Grinnell and “ homeward bound,” unfurling all our 
flags. 
But we were not yet to embark; for the gale which 
