LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
571 
property interred under the snow, that he determined to be one 
of the party, in the exhumation of the buried subject, and if 
his suspicions should turn out to be verified, then to punish 
the audacious Tiglitokes, with the utmost weight of his resent¬ 
ment. 
The following day was, however, very inauspicious for the 
disinterment of the stolen property, as the snow came down so 
heavily, that the cabin was considered a preferable place, to 
braving the pelting of the elements, for the recovery perhaps 
of a lump of old iron, or a piece of broken crockery. There 
was also great truth in the conclusion, which Capt. Ross drew ; 
that if an article, whether it be iron or crockery, be buried under 
the snow one day, it is very natural to suppose, that it will be 
found there on the morrow, and, therefore, as Capt. Ross has 
frequently acknowledged, that he had never attempted the peru¬ 
sal of Young’s Night Thoughts, in which, with a number of 
other valuable truths and precepts, it is stated that—- 
Procrastination is the thief of time 
he resolved to wait the cessation of the snow storm, and to 
postpone that part of his discoveries until a more seasonable 
period. 
If the opinion had been previously impressed on the minds of 
the crew, that they were indisputably stationed in their winter 
quarters, it was now reduced to a certainty, by the appearance 
of young ice in the bay, which in a single night was almost 
strong enough for the dogs to run over; this was a circumstance 
which annihilated every hope of a speedy liberation, for, in pro¬ 
portion as the frost increased in intensity, the old ice became 
more compact, and one time it assumed such a solidity, that the 
tide ceased to have any influence upon it, or even the highest 
wind to move it from its station. 
On the 9th, the wind changed to the south east, with fine 
calm weather, it was therefore proposed by Capt. Ross, to take 
an excursion to the place rendered memorable, in his opinion, 
by the mysterious conduct of the two Esquimaux, and where he 
