DR. WALKER'S SLEDGE JOURNEY.
Doctor Walker's zeal for travelling was not to be restrained; I therefore gladly availed myself of his willingness to go with a party to Cape Airey and bring back the depôt of provisions left there in August last. These trips will delay our spring journeys for a few days.
During my absence from the 'Fox' the weather was often stormy, and temperature unusually low; the mean for the month of February was -36°, showing it to be one of the coldest on record. When possible the men were allowed to go out shooting, and obtain fifty or sixty ptarmigan and a hare; a few foxes were taken in traps, and two reindeer were seen.
Yesterday two bears came near the ship, but were frightened away by the dogs. Hobson shot three ptarmigan. To-day I rambled over the hills, the weather being fine, and saw a hare.
29th.—Continued fine weather. A couple more foxes and a lemming in its brown coat have been captured, and a hare and four ptarmigan shot. This fine bright weather seems to have awakened the lemmings and ermines; their tracks, which were very rarely seen during winter, are now tolerably numerous; foxes appear in greater numbers, probably following up the ptarmigan from the south. The thermometer ranges between zero and -20°; it has once been up to +13°. When exposed to a noonday sun against the ship's side it rises 50° higher. The earth-thermometer—placed 2 feet 2 inches beneath the surface—which gradually fell until the 10th of this month, has now begun to ascend; its minimum was +½°; much snow also lay over it, 6 feet deep at this season.
DR. WALKER'S RETURN.
On the 25th Dr. Walker and his party returned, not having been able to find the depôt. They found a barrel of flour upon the beach a few miles south of Brentford Bay; it appeared to have lain there for years, just inside a shingle projection, which kept off the ice pressure, so that it had not been forced up high upon the beach; the ice which bore it there—probably from Port Leopold—had disappeared, and the cask was frozen into the shingle. The heading has been brought on board, but the "scribing" upon it is very indistinct, and unintelligible to us. The flour is of the ordinary description used in the navy, and known as "seconds;" most of it was good, and a plain pudding made of it for our mess could not be distinguished from fresh flour. A specimen has been preserved with the view of identifying it with the Fury Beach or Port Leopold stores of flour. With the exception of a solitary bear, the party saw no living creatures. The shore along which they travelled was a very low shingly limestone.
RETURN OF CAPTAIN YOUNG.
SNOW BLINDNESS.
Last evening I was delighted to see Young and his two dog-sledges heave in sight; he brought about 8 cwt. of sugar from Fury Beach, but not without much difficulty, owing to the roughness of the pack in Creswell Bay, and also to the breaking down of one of his sledges; to avoid this pack he found it necessary to travel nearly all round Creswell Bay. Cape Garry he describes as a gradually curved extent of flat land, and not the decided cape it appears to be upon the chart; two reindeer were seen near it, and during the journey four bears; no other animals were met with. His labors had been very severe; one sledge broke down and all the sugar had to be piled upon the other: the consequence was that the sledge was so heavily loaded that it would only run freely after the dogs on smooth ice; and directly any hummocks were encountered, the dogs, with their usual instinct, not to drag a sledge unless it does run freely, would lie down, and oblige Captain Young and his two men to unload and carry the packages, over the obstacle, upon their own backs. After this, snow-blindness came on; Young and one of his men became blind as kittens; and the third man had to load, lead, and unload them, when these portages occurred. Young's Esquimaux dog-driver, Samuel, was quite blind when the party reached the ship. Two dogs, not choosing to allow themselves to be caught and put in harness, had been still left behind at the last encampment.
There still remains at Fury Beach an immense stack of preserved vegetables and soups; the party supped off them and found them good. Young brought me back two specimen tins of "carrots plain" and "carrots and gravy." All small casks and packages were covered with snow; of the large ones which appeared through it, he saw thirty-four casks of flour, five of split peas, five of tobacco, and four of sugar. Only a very few tons of coals remained. There were two boats, a short four-oared gig and a large cutter; the former required nothing but caulking to make her serviceable, but the latter had a large portion of one bow and side cut out, as if for making, or repairing flat sledges. No record was found.