Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/208

Rh this winter; but, dreaded as it is, we have to bring our hearts to submit to this dispensation of Providence. The George Henry is fated to be ice-bound here for full nine months to come. The 20th of October, instead of finding us on our way as purposed, with hearts swelling with joyous anticipations of a quick passage home, and of soon meeting with our loved ones, finds us engaged in planning for subsistence during an imprisonment of nine months in these frozen regions. What a change! what disappointment! and yet who shall say it has not been wisely ordered. 'Man proposes—God disposes;' cheerfully, then, we should submit to our lot.

"Friday, October 25th, 1861.—This morning, to all appearance, our winter's fate is sealed. The ice is now seven inches thick, and is rapidly increasing. It is now twelve o'clock, noon, the sun shining brightly, the wind blowing strong from the north-west, and the thermometer only one degree above zero. "After breakfast Captain B sent out three Innuits to go to Budington Mountain and see the position of the pack. They returned at half-past four; their report removes the hope of all those who were still looking to get out of our imprisonment this season. The Innuits state that seaward it is all ice; the bay is all ice except the small opening to be seen from the ship's deck. The lower and entrance part of the bay is filled with pack; in Davis's Strait nothing is to be seen but pack—'all white, no black.' The effect produced by this upon some of the George Henry's men was very painful.

"Feelings of disappointment—sad disappointment—steal over me now and then at our not being able to proceed according to our plans; but I confidently believe it is all for the best." It was upon Captain B that the care and anxiety principally fell. He had to plan and arrange for his ship's company during another nine or ten months, and there was but a scanty supply of provisions and fuel to do it with. As to the latter want, that could be met in various ways. The jawbones of