IN SIGHT OF LAND 
195 
my eyes to a state of such acute pain that I could 
not see as well as usual. I turned my binoculars 
on the cloudlike mass on the horizon but still I re¬ 
mained in doubt. 
So I called to the Eskimo and, pointing, asked 
him, “That land?” 
He answered that it might be. 
Then I gave him the glasses and sent him up on 
a high rafter to look more carefully. After a mo¬ 
ment he came back and said that it might be an 
island like Wrangell Island but that it would be 
of no use to us. He seemed depressed by the hard 
day we had had, crossing so many leads. Finally 
he turned to me and said: 
“We see no land, we no get to land; my mother, 
my father, tell me long time ago Eskimo get out 
on ice and drive away from Point Barrow never 
come back.” 
I tried to hearten him by telling him that Eskimo 
out on the ice did not have to get back by them¬ 
selves but that the white men would bring them 
back and that I had been a long distance out on the 
ice with Eskimo and we had all got back safely. 
He still seemed pretty much discouraged, so I took 
the glasses and went up on the rafter to see for 
myself, though his eyes were in a better condition 
than mine. I made every effort to see as well as 
I could and was convinced that I was looking at 
