DALRTMPLE ROCK. 
261 
small from the first; but the delays we seemed fated 
to encounter had made me reduce them to what I then 
thought the minimum quantity, six ounces of bread- 
dust and a lump of tallow the size of a walnut: a paste 
or broth, made of these before setting out in the morn¬ 
ing and distributed occasionally through the day in 
scanty rations, was our only fare. We were all of us 
glad when, running the boats under the lee of a berg, 
we were able to fill our kettles with snow and boil 
up for our great restorative tea. I may remark that, 
under the circumstances of most privation, I found no 
comforter so welcome to the party as this. We drank 
immoderately of it, and always with advantage. 
While the men slept after their weary labor, McGary 
and myself climbed the berg for a view ahead. It was 
a saddening one. We had lost sight of Cary Island; 
but shoreward, up Wostenholme Channel, the ice 
seemed as if it had not yet begun to yield to the in¬ 
fluences of summer. Every thing showed how intense 
the last winter had been. We were close upon the 1st 
of July, and had a right to look for the North Water 
of the whalers where we now had solid ice or close 
pack, both of them almost equally unfavorable to our 
progress. Far off in the distance—how far I could not 
measure—rose the Dalrymple Rock, projecting from 
the lofty precipice of the island ahead; but between 
us and it the land-ice spread itself from the base of 
Saunders’s Island unbroken to the Far South. 
The next day’s progress was of course slow and 
wearisome, pushing through alternate ice and water for 
