Page:Furcountryorseve00vernrich.djvu/478

 286 THE FUR COUNTRY. We must here remark, that the health of all the colonists remained eood, they had at least escaped illness ; the baby, too, was now quite well again, and throve admirably in the mild weather of the early spring. The thaw continued to proceed rapidly from the 2nd to the 6th April. The weather was warm but cloudy, and rain fell frequently in large drops. The wind blew from the south-west, and was laden with the heated dust of the continent. Unfortunately the sky was 80 hazy, that it was quite impossible to take observations, neither sun, moon, nor stars could be seen through the heavy mists, and this was the more provoking, as it was of the greatest importance to note the slightest movements of the island. It was on the night of the 7th April that the actual breaking up of the ice commenced. In the morning the Lieutenant, Mrs Bar- nett, Kalumah, and Sergeant Long, had climbed to the summit of Gape Bathurst, and saw that a great change had taken place in the chain of icebergs. The huge barrier had parted nearly in the middle, and now formed two separate masses, the larger of which seemed to be moving northwards. Was it the Kamtchatka Current which produced this motion ? Would the floating island take the same direction ? The intense anxiety of the Lieutenant and his companions can easily be imagined. Their fate might now be decided in a few hours, and if they should be drifted some hundred miles to the north, it would be very difficult to reach the continent in a vessel so small as theirs. Unfortunately it was impossible to ascertain the nature or extent of the displacement which was going on. One thing was, however, evident, the island was not yet moving, at least not in the same direction as the ice-wall. It therefore seemed probable that whilst part of the ice-field was floating to the north, that portion immediately surrounding the island still remained stationary. This displacement of the icebergs did not in the least alter the opinion of the young Esquimaux. Kalumah still maintained that the thaw would proceed from north to south, and that the ice- wall would shortly feel the influence of the Behring Current. To make herself more easily understood, she traced the direction of the current on the sand with a little piece of wood, and made signs that in following it the island must approach the American con- tinent. No argument could shake her conviction on this point, and