Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/333

Rh At dusk on the 29th we returned to Boathaven, where we found our friends just as we had left them. I then learned from Mr. Dease that he could not have extricated his boat sooner than the preceding day, and did not think it worth while to risk the attempt so late.

The bad weather and advanced season now rendered every one anxious to return to winter-quarters, and I reluctantly acquiesced in the general sentiment; but, for doing so, I had reasons peculiar to myself. I considered that we could not now expect to reach Back's Great Fish River; that, by exploring a part only of the unknown coast intervening, our return to the Coppermine must be so long protracted as to preclude the possibility of taking the boats up that bad river; and that, by abandoning them on the coast to the Esquimaux, we excluded the prospect of accomplishing the whole by a third voyage, with the benefit, perhaps, of a more propitious season. Three great travellers, Hearne, Franklin, and Richardson, had successively pronounced the ascent of the Coppermine, above the Bloody Fall, to be impracticable with boats; and our people, recollecting only the violence and impetuosity of our descent, entertained the same opinion. Fully aware of the great importance of this point to any future operations, I had, with a careful eye,