thstanding the united efforts of the whole company, was found to be
impossible. The night was extremely dark, the snow was now very deep,
and, under these additional disadvantages, they found it very difficult
to make way through the bushes and the bog for themselves, all of them
getting many falls in the attempt. The only alternative was to make a
fire upon the spot; but the snow which had fallen, and was still
falling, besides what was every moment shaken in flakes from the trees,
rendered it equally impracticable to kindle one there, and to bring any
part of that which had been kindled in the wood thither: They were,
therefore, reduced to the sad necessity of leaving the unhappy wretches
to their fate; having first made them a bed of boughs from the trees,
and spread a covering of the same kind over them to a considerable
height.

Having now been exposed to the cold and the snow near an hour and a
half, some of the rest began to lose their sensibility; and one Briscoe,
another of Mr Banks's servants, was so ill, that it was thought he must
die before he could be got to the fire.

At the fire, however, at length they arrived; and passed the night in a
situation, which, however dreadful in itself, was rendered more
afflicting by the remembrance of what was past, and the uncertainty of
what was to come. Of twelve, the number that set out together in health
and spirits, two were supposed to be already dead; a third was so ill,
that it was very doubtful whether he would be able to go forward in the
morning; and a fourth, Mr Buchan, was in danger of a return of his fits,
by fresh fatigue, after so uncomfortable a night: They were distant from
the ship a long day's journey, through pathless woods, in which it was
too probable they might be bewildered till they were overtaken by the
next night; and, not having prepared for a journey of more than eight or
ten hours, they were wholly destitute of provisions, except a vulture,
which they happened to shoot while they were out, and which, if equally
divided, would not afford each of them half a meal; and they knew not
how much more they might suffer from the cold, as the snow still
continued to fall. A dreadful testimony of the severity of the climate,
as it was now the midst of summer in this part of the world, the 21st of
December being here the longest day; and every thing might justly be
dreaded from a phenomenon which, in the corresponding season, is unknown
even in Norway