Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/411

Rh snow-squalls, attended with sharp frost; and, as the winds were perseveringly adverse, our progress homewards was miserably slow.

On the 1st of September the west wind increased to a strong gale, and next morning (at Point Bowes) we awoke amidst perfect winter, the rocks on which we lay being coyered with snow, and the pools among them frozen strong enough to bear a man. The storm turned to the north-west, and became more furious; and several of our company recalled to mind that we were still five or six hundred miles from our Arctic home.

On the 4th the weather began to moderate, and I walked to a hill about four miles distant, to obtain a view of the interior country. It presented no new feature, and consisted of rocky heights, with intervening swamps, and many small lakes; where a few does with their fawns cropped the stunted and withered herbage. Along shore the water, stirred up from its muddy bottom by the gales, was of a dark red; but to seaward the separation of this turbid colour from the clear green was marked by a long continuous line.

The north-west gales were now happily succeeded by strong breezes from the opposite quarter, which brought us one more week of fair weather. On the 5th we ran a little way up