innerless to
bed.

(*Footnote. It is a curious coincidence that our Expedition left Point
Turnagain on August 22--on the same day that Captain Parry sailed out of
Repulse Bay. The parties were then distant from each other 539 miles.)

Soon after our departure this day a sealed tin-case, sufficiently buoyant
to float, was thrown overboard, containing a short account of our
proceedings and the position of the most conspicuous points. The wind
blew off the land, the water was smooth and, as the sea is in this part
more free from islands than in any other, there was every probability of
its being driven off the shore into the current which, as I have before
mentioned, we suppose, from the circumstance of Mackenzie's River being
the only known stream that brings down the wood we have found along the
shores, to set to the eastward.

August 23.

A severe frost caused us to pass a comfortless night. At two P.M. we set
sail and the men voluntarily launched out to make a traverse of fifteen
miles across Melville Sound before a strong wind and heavy sea. The
privation of food under which our voyagers were then labouring absorbed
every other terror; otherwise the most powerful persuasion could not have
induced them to attempt such a traverse. It was with the utmost
difficulty that the canoes were kept from turning their broadsides to the
waves, though we sometimes steered with all the paddles. One of them
narrowly escaped being overset by this accident, which occurred in a
mid-channel where the waves were so high that the masthead of our canoe
was often hid from the other, though it was sailing within hail.

The traverse however was made; we were then near a high rocky lee shore
on which a heavy surf was beating. The wind being on the beam, the canoes
drifted fast to leeward and, on rounding a point, the recoil of the sea
from the rocks was so great that they were with difficulty kept from
foundering. We looked in vain for a sheltered bay to land in but at
length, being unable to weather another point, we were obliged to put
ashore on the open beach which fortunately was sandy at this spot. The
debarkation was effected fortunately without further injury than
splitting the head of the second canoe, which was easily repaired.

Our encampment being near the spot where we killed the deer on the 11th,
almost the whole party went out to hunt, but returned in the evening
without having seen any game. The berries however were ripe an