Page:Life with the Esquimaux - 1864 - Volume 2.djvu/272

Rh that we could not keep our igloo dry, and it was resolved to erect a tupic or tent. This finished, we moved into it; and a few minutes after we had vacated our old home, down fell the igloo a mass of ruins.

On May 1st, 1862, I started from this encampment on a trip to Kingaite coast. While Henry was engaged harnessing up the dogs, I put together my instruments, a little bag of rock pemmican, and some Borden meat-biscuit, of which I had saved merely a trifle for use on excursions of this kind. Sharkey, with sledge and dogs, was ready, and, after a good hot breakfast, we started, at 7.40 for the point I had selected—near the President's Seat—viz. that where an ascent could probably be made of the glacier which I had seen on my voyage up the bay the previous fall. My course across the bay to Kingaite coast was south 4° east, true. The number of dogs in the team was ten, but, as they were in poor condition, we made but three and a half to four and a half miles per hour. In crossing the bay we found abundance of hummocky ice, and the snow-wreaths were numerous, abrupt, and high. A few minutes before noon we drew into a small bay that extended on toward the point I sought to reach. With great solicitude, I watched that part of the heavens in which the sun was, but, to my deep regret, the thick clouds were as a veil between my eyes and it. I had my instruments in readiness in case the sun should show itself for a few moments. If I could have got two solar observations, keeping correct account of the time elapsing between, by which to obtain accurately the "hour angle," I should have done so, for thus I could have determined my actual latitude; but the clouds were too thick for the sun's rays to penetrate them. I kept, however, a careful account of my course and of the distance made, by which I determined the latitude of Kingaite coast where I struck it. As the dogs turned up the narrow bay leading to the point of land we were making, I was delighted to see the face of an abutting glacier, which fully proved the truth of my anticipations that there were iceberg discharges on Kingaite side.