to
being released from their winter imprisonment. Within twenty-four hours
the body of water in these ravines would release itself, and an almost
dry water-course be left. Nothing in the shape of a river seemed to
exist in this island--rather a remarkable fact, considering its size,
and the immense quantity of snow annually thawed in its interior
valleys and plains.

[Headnote: _ASSISTANCE HARBOUR._]

A beautiful lake existed about two miles inland; and, having been
discovered by one of Captain Penny's people on the anniversary of the
battle of Trafalgar, was very appropriately called Trafalgar Lake; in
it a small species of trout had been caught occasionally throughout the
winter; and if the ice broke up early, a good haul of fish was
anticipated from the seine-nets: on elevated land around the lake,
sorrel and scurvy-grass grew in abundance. I need hardly say we eat of
it voraciously, for the appetite delighted in any thing like vegetable
food.

Occasionally eider and pin-tailed duck were shot, as well as a few
brent-geese, but these birds appeared remarkably shy and wary, although
evidently here to breed.

During the first week of my stay in Assistance Harbour, immense flights
of wild fowl were to be seen amongst the loose ice in Barrow's Strait;
but when the pack had dispersed, and left nothing but an open sea, the
birds appeared to have gone elsewhere for food. Indeed, I always
observed that at the edge of ice more birds were invariably to be found
in the Arctic regions, than in large or open water,--a rule equally
applicable to the whale, seal, and bear, all of which are to be found
at the floe-edge, or in loosely-packed ice.

A gale of wind from the southward occurred, and I was extremely anxious
to see whether it would bring over the ice from the opposite shore, as
the croakers in Assistance Harbour, unable to deny the existence of
water along the north shore of Barrow's Strait, consoled themselves by
declaring that the floe had merely formed itself into pack, and was now
lying along the coast of North Somerset, ready at an hour's warning to
spread itself over the waters. The southerly gale, however, piped
cheerily. A heavy swell and surf--Oh! most pleasant sound!--beat upon
the fixed ice of Assistance Harbour; yet no pack came, nor floe-pieces
either, and thus was placed beyond all doubt the fact that, at any
rate, as far west as Griffith's Island, Barrow's Strait was clear of
ice. In an angle formed be