Island on the 13th, in expectation of being supplied by the
Esquimaux. Mr. Ross returned on the 14th without success, the whole of
the natives having left the island after plundering the birds' nests, as
they had done the preceding year.

Finding that our valuable dogs must be now wholly dependant on our own
exertions in providing meat, a boat from each ship was carried down to
the neighbourhood of the open water, and shortly afterward two others,
to endeavour to kill walruses for them. This was the more desirable from
the probability of the Fury's passing her next winter where no natives
were resident, and the consequent necessity of laying in our stock for
that long and dreary season during the present summer. Our people,
therefore, pitched their tents near the old Esquimaux habitations; and
thus were four boats constantly employed, whenever the weather would
permit, for the three succeeding weeks.

On the 16th Lieutenant Hoppner and his party returned to the ships,
having only been enabled to travel to the south shore of Cockburn
Island, on account of their guides not yet proceeding any farther. Two
of the Esquimaux accompanied our travellers back to Igloolik, and, being
loaded with various useful presents from the ships, returned home the
following day.

CHAPTER XV.

Extraordinary Disruption of Ice in Quilliam Creek.--Some Appearance
of Scurvy among the Seamen and Marines.--Discovery of Gifford
River.--Commence cutting the Ice outside the Ships to release them
from their Winter-quarters.--Considerations respecting the Return
of the Expedition to England.--Unfavourable State of the Ice at the
Eastern Entrance of the Strait.--Proceed to the Southward.--Ships
beset and drifted up Lyon Inlet.--Decease of Mr. George
Fife.--Final Release from the Ice, and Arrival in England.--Remarks
upon the practicability of a Northwest Passage.

Among the various changes which the warmth of the returning summer was
now producing around us, none was more remarkable than that noticed by
Captain Lyon in an excursion to Quilliam Creek, and which, in a note
received from him by the return of the sledges on the 17th, he thus
describes: "Between the two points forming the entrance of the creek, we
saw a high wall of ice extending immediately across from land to land,
and on arriving at it, found that, by some extraordinary convulsion, the
floe had burst upward, and that immen