rder to try
the cart which had been constructed for carrying the tents and
baggage, and which appeared to answer very well. The view from
this hill was not such as to offer much encouragement to our hopes
of future advancement to the westward. The sea still presented the
same unbroken and continuous surface of solid and impenetrable
ice, and this ice could not be less than from six to seven feet in
thickness, as we knew it to be about the ships. When to this
circumstance was added the consideration that scarcely the
slightest symptoms of thawing had yet appeared, and that in three
weeks from this period the sun would again begin to decline to the
southward, it must be confessed that the most sanguine and
enthusiastic among us had some reason to be staggered in the
expectations they had formed of the complete accomplishment of our
enterprise.

CHAPTER VIII.

Journey across Melville Island to the Northern Shore, and Return
to the Ships by a different Route.

The weather being favourable on the morning of the 1st of June, I
made such arrangements as were necessary previous to my departure
on our intended journey. I directed Lieutenants Liddon and Beechey
to proceed with all possible despatch in the equipment of the
ships for sea, having them ready to sail by the end of June, in
order that we might be able to take advantage of any favourable
alteration in the state of the ice at an earlier period than
present appearances allowed us to anticipate.

The party selected to accompany me, out of the numerous volunteers
on this occasion, consisted of Captain Sabine, Messrs. Fisher,
Nias, Reid, and Sergeant McMahon, of the marines, Sergeant Martin,
of the artillery, and three seamen and two marines belonging to
both ships, making a total of twelve, including myself. We were
supplied with provisions for three weeks, according to the daily
proportion of one pound of biscuit, two thirds of a pound of
preserved meat, one ounce of salep powder, one ounce of sugar, and
half a pint of spirits for each man. Two tents, of the kind called
in the army horsemen's tents, were made of blankets, with two
boarding-pikes fixed across at each end, and a ridge-rope along
the top, which, with stones laid upon the foot of the blankets,
made a very comfortable and portable shelter. These tents, with
the whole of the provisions, together with a _conjuror_ or cooking
apparatus, and a small quantity of wood for fuel, amounting on the
whole