plane of snow was sloped down to the ice to facilitate the
launching of the sledges when they had to be pulled on deck.

Such were the chief arrangements and preparations that were made by our
adventurers for spending the winter; but although we have described them
at this point in our story, many of them were not completed until a much
later period.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A HUNTING EXPEDITION, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH THE HUNTERS MEET WITH MANY
INTERESTING, DANGEROUS, PECULIAR, AND REMARKABLE EXPERIENCES, AND MAKE
ACQUAINTANCE WITH SEALS, WALRUS, DEER, AND RABBITS.

We must now return to Fred Ellice and his companions, Meetuck the
Esquimaux, O'Riley, and Joseph West, whom we left while they were on the
point of starting on a hunting expedition.

They took the direction of the ice hummocks out to the sea, and, seated
comfortably on a large sledge, were dragged by the team of dogs over the
ice at the rate of ten miles an hour.

"Well! did I iver expect to ride in a carriage and six?" exclaimed
O'Riley in a state of great glee as the dogs dashed forward at full
speed, while Meetuck flourished his awful whip, making it crack like a
pistol-shot ever and anon.

The sledge on which they travelled was of the very curious and simple
construction peculiar to the Esquimaux, and was built by Peter Grim
under the direction of Meetuck. It consisted of two runners of about
ten feet in length, six inches high, two inches broad, and three feet
apart. They were made of tough hickory, slightly curved in front, and
were attached to each other by cross bars. At the stem of the vehicle
there was a low back composed of two uprights and a single bar across.
The whole machine was fastened together by means of tough lashings of
raw seal-hide, so that, to all appearance, it was a rickety affair,
ready to fall to pieces. In reality, however, it was very strong. No
metal nails of any kind could have held in the keen frost; they would
have snapped like glass at the first jolt; but the seal-skin fastenings
yielded to the rude shocks and twistings, to which the sledge was
subjected, and seldom gave way, or, if they did, were easily and
speedily renewed without the aid of any other implement than a knife.

But the whip was the most remarkable part of the equipage. The handle
was only sixteen inches in length, but the lash was twenty _feet_ long,
made of the toughest seal-skin, and as thick as a man's wrist near the
handle, whence it tapere