we had met with this season, with a
fawn so small as to leave no doubt of its having been dropped
since the arrival of the female upon the island. They were so wild
as not to allow us to approach them within a quarter of a mile.
The day was fine, with light and variable airs; the thermometer
stood at 34 deg. in the shade at seven A.M., at which time it was
unfortunately broken.

We again set forward at two A.M. on the 3d, crossing one or two
ravines, running E.N.E. and W.S.W., in which there was a large
collection of snow, but as yet no appearance of water in the
bottom of them. Captain Sabine and myself, being considerably
ahead of the rest of the party, had sat down to wait for them,
when a fine reindeer came trotting up, and played round us for a
quarter of an hour, within thirty yards. We had no gun, nor do I
know that we should have killed it if we had, there being already
as much weight upon the cart as the men could well drag, and
having no fuel to spare for cooking; besides, we felt it would
have been but an ill return for the confidence which he seemed
willing to place in us. On hearing our people talking on the
opposite side of the ravine, the deer immediately crossed over,
and went directly up to them, with very little caution; and they
being less scrupulous than we were, one or two shots were
immediately fired at him, but without effect; on which he again
crossed over to where we were sitting, approaching us nearer than
before. As soon as we rose up and walked on, he accompanied us
like a dog, sometimes trotting ahead of us, and then returning
within forty or fifty yards. When we halted, at six A.M., to make
the usual observations, he remained by us till the rest of the
party came up, and then trotted off. The reindeer is by no means a
graceful animal; its high shoulders, and an awkward stoop in its
head, giving it rather a deformed appearance. Our new acquaintance
had no horns; he was of a brownish colour, with a black saddle, a
broad black rim round the eyes, and very white about the tail. We
observed that, whenever he was about to set off, he made a sort of
playful gambol, by rearing on his hind legs.

At two o'clock on the morning of the 4th we continued our journey
to the northward, over the same snowy and level plain as before,
than which it is impossible to conceive anything more dreary and
uninteresting. It frequently happened that, for an hour together,
not a single spot of uncovered ground cou