Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/262

Rh On returning to our encampment, we found that the dogs had made sad havoc with our walrus meat and blubber, and other things in general. However, as it could not now be helped, we put up with it. Our supper that night was blessed cold water, chunks of cold pemmican, and raw frozen walrus meat. The following day, April 12th, while Sharkey and Koojesse were engaged in the locality of my third encampment hunting young seal, I started, accompanied by my attendant, Henry Smith, to explore another bay which appeared to run up some distance beyond Peter Force Sound. I expected to be able to go and return in one day, and therefore made no preparations beyond taking half a pound of pemmican and a quarter of a pound of Borden's meat-biscuit, intended for our lunch. As I wished to keep a careful account of the distance travelled, I took the line used by me when on the Greenland coast, near Holsteinborg, in drawing out of the great deep many a cod and halibut, and measured off with tape-line seventy-five feet; my log then consisted of a cold chisel used by me in cutting out my rock pemmican.

It should be said, however, that previous to this time, and on all subsequent occasions when my whole company were with me, and all our provision was to be carried, no one could ride on the sledge, the dogs having difficulty even in dragging their necessary load. Consequently, at such times, all my measurements between my astronomically-determined points had to be made by pacing—a tolerably accurate, but, withal, a very tiresome method of working. I found many apparent heads to the bay during my passage up, and at each turn it seemed as if we had reached the termination; but, on making the several points of land, others were found beyond.

After some hours of travel the dogs became very tired, the snow allowing them to sink to their bodies at every step. It was growing late; a snow-storm was coming on; to return was impossible; we therefore set about making ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow. We had no