Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/385

Rh that arose wherever we landed, even from the stony beaches and naked rocks; but the gales and cold nights soon delivered us from this shortlived nuisance. As to the natives, their caches of blubber, sledges, &c. occupied the very same situations as last year; but they themselves had all passed inland for the summer reindeer hunt. As nearly as we could reckon, the whole population from Richardson River to Cape Barrow may comprehend about fifty tents, containing from three to four hundred souls, of whom not more than one-fourth were seen by us, as already related. I obtained satisfactory observations at Cape Barrow for the dip of the needle, which proved to be 87° 13′ N.

With the benefit of strong winds, and the facilities afforded by the extensive groupe of Wilmot Islands for evading the principal streams of ice, we safely traversed the broad inlet, and on the 20th supped at Boathaven, the place of our former weary detention. The wind here blowing very fresh off the land, we ran up to Cape Franklin, which we reached soon after midnight, just one month earlier than my arrival at the same spot with my pedestrian party in 1838; and instead of the grand strait between the continent and Victoria Land being covered with an unbroken sheet of ice, as it then was, we now 2 A 2