“October 8. Still we drift. Barlow’s Inlet is nearly abreast of us, and Cape Hotham seen distinctly. The broad, unterminated expanse of ice to the south is Lancaster Sound, sixty miles distant when we first began our prisoner’s journey. Thermometer at +8°.
“To-day seemed like a wave of the handkerchief from our receding summer. Winter is in every thing. Yet the skies came back to us with warm ochres and pinks, and the sun, albeit from a lowly altitude, shone out in full brightness. It was a mockery of warmth, however, scarcely worthy the unpretending sincerity of the great planet; for the mercury, exposed to the full radiance of his deceitful glare, rose but two degrees: from +7° to 9°. In spite of this, the day was beautiful to remember, as a type of the sort of thing which we once shared with the world from which we are shut out; a parting picture, to think about during the long night. These dark days, or rather the dark day, will soon be on us. The noon shadows of our long masts almost lose themselves in the distance.
“A little white fox was caught alive in a trap this morning. He was an astute-visaged little scamp; and although the chains of captivity, made of spun-yarn and leather, set hardly upon him, he could spare abundant leisure for bear bones and snow. He would drink no water. His cry resembled the inter-paroxysmal yell of a very small boy undergoing spanking. The note came with an impulsive vehemence, that expressed not only fear and pain, but a very tolerable spice of anger and ill-temper.”
He was soon reconciled, however. The very next day he was tame enough to feed from the hand, and had lost all that startled wildness of look which is supposed to characterize his tribe. He was evidently unused to man, and without the educated instinct of flight. Twice, when suffered to escape from the vessel, he was caught in our traps the same night. Indeed, the white foxes of this region—we caught more than thirty of them—seemed to look at us with more curiosity than fear. They would come directly to the ship’s side; and, though startled at first when we fired at them, soon came back. They even suffered us to approach them almost within reach of the hand, ran around us, as we gave the halloo, in a narrow circle, but stopped as soon as we were still, and stared us inquisitively in the face. One little fellow, when we let him loose on the ice after keeping him prisoner for a day or two, scampered back again incontinently to his cubby-hole on the deck. There may be matter of reflection for the naturalist in this. Has this animal no natural enemy but famine and cold? The foxes ceased to visit us soon after this, owing probably to the uncertain ice between us and the shore: they are shrewd ice-masters.
W
E remained during the rest of this month ice-cradled, and drifting about near the outlet of Wellington Channel. Occasionally a strong southerly wind would set us back again to the north, as far, perhaps as Barlow’s Inlet; but it was soon apparent that the greater compactness of the barrier that had come down after us, and the force of some unknown current, were resisting our progress in that direction. A northerly wind, on the other hand, seemed to have no counteracting influences. A little while after it began to blow, open leads would present themselves under our lee, and the floe which imbedded us moved gradually and without conflict through them toward the south. Our thoughts turned irresistibly to the broad expanse of Lancaster Sound, which lay wild and rugged before us, and to the increasing probability that it was to be our field of trial during the long, dark winter—perhaps our final home.