453 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
believe that, in this instance, the promise would be kept; and, 
having* rewarded them with a couple of fish-hooks for the salmon, 
which they had brought, they left the ship, bending their course 
to the south east. 
! 
At 7 o'clock in the evening, Capt. Ross left the ship on his 
excursion, but half an hour had scarcely elapsed, before one 
of the party returned, with the intelligence that the sledge had 
broken down, and that the carpenter was to accompany him to 
the spot, for the purpose of repairing it. Towards evening some 
more of the party returned, having seen on their way five deel 
with their fawns. 
On the following day, the whole of the crew were on the 
alert, with the hope of falling in with the deer and the fawns, 
but, after spending nearly the whole of the day in quest of them, 
they returned with only two geese and three plovers. 
The crew were now chiefly employed in painting the mast 
heads, and rigging out of the ship, in which they were encou¬ 
raged by the thought, that they were then fitting the masts, 
which were to bear their sails into seas, where a sail had never 
been reefed before, and which were to be filled with the breeze, 
that was to waft them to a land, untrodden as yet by European 
foot, and which was to carry their names down to posterity, as 
the greatest, the noblest of British mariners. 
On the 3rd of July, Commander Ross returned from his excur¬ 
sion, and on the same evening Capt. Ross returned, bringing 
with him a heavy load of fish, which he had obtained from the 
Esquimaux, amounting to between four and five hundred pounds. 
These were fish, that the Esquimaux had buried since last 
August or September, it being their custom, in general, to bury 
in the snow their superfluous stock, to which they repair in the 
winter when short of provisions, but, notwithstanding their 
habitual gluttony, they will sometimes endure the utmost ex¬ 
treme of hunger, rather than undergo the fatigue of travelling 
to their stow-holes, to fetch away a part of their contents. The 
whole of these fish were as hard as a rock, from the intensity of 
the frost, but, on being thawed, the juices of the fish appeared 
to be as fresh as on the day of their capture. This great nurn- 
