Most Greenland sailors use these; but many persons, both officers and men, have an absurd prejudice against what they call "wearing stays."
It is remarkable that this poor man had, twice before, within the space of nine months, been very near death; for, besides the accident already mentioned, of falling down the hill when escaping from the bear, he was also in imminent danger of dying of dropsy during the winter.
This birch, they said, had been procured from the southward by way of Noowook. We never met with any of the same kind in those parts of the country which we visited, except that observed by Captain Lyon in the deserted habitations of the Esquimaux near Five Hawser Bay.
Toolooak, who was a frequent visitor at the young gentlemen's mess-table on board the Fury, once evinced this taste, and no small cunning at the same time, by asking alternately for a little more bread and a little more butter, till he had made a hearty meal.
Cervical, 7; dorsal, 13; lumbar, 7; sacral, 3; caudal, 19.
Cartwright's Labrador, iii., 232.
Ledyard. Proceedings of the African Association, vol i, p. 30.
The first travelling boat, which was built by way of experiment, was planked differently from these two; the planks, which were of half-inch oak, being ingeniously "tongued" together with copper, in order to save the necessity of caulking in case of the wood shrinking. This was the boat subsequently landed on Red Beach.
This article of our equipment contains a large proportion of nutriment in a small weight and compass, and is therefore invaluable on such occasions. The process, which requires great attention, consists in drying large thin slices of the lean of the meat over the smoke of wood-fires, then pounding it, and lastly mixing it with about an equal weight of its own fat. In this state it is quite ready for use, without farther cooking.
The merits of this simple but valuable invention being now too well known to require any detailed account of the experiments, it is only necessary for me to remark, in this place, that the compass, having the plate attached to it, gave, under all circumstances, the correct magnetic bearing.
It is remarkable, that the Esquimaux word for boot is very like this—Kameega.
I find it to be the universal opinion among the most experienced of our whalers, that there is much less ice met with, of late years, in getting to the northward, in these latitudes, than formerly was the case. Mr. Scoresby, to whose very valuable local information, contained in his "Account of the Arctic Regions," I have been greatly indebted on this occasion, mentions the circumstance as a generally received fact.
It was probably some such gale as this which has given to Hakluyt's Headland, in an old Dutch chart, the appellation of "Duyvel's Hoek."
I have been thus particular in noticing the Hecla's position, because our observations would appear to be, with one exception, the most northern on record at that time. The Commissioners of Longitude, in their memorial to the king in council, in the year 1821, consider that the "progress of discovery has not arrived northward, according to any well-authenticated accounts, so far as eighty-one degrees of north latitude." Mr. Scoresby states his having observed in lat. 81° 12' 42".
Had we succeeded in reaching the higher latitudes, where the change of the sun's altitude during the twenty-four hours is still less perceptible, it would have been essentially necessary to possess the certain means of knowing this; since an error of twelve hours of time would have carried us, when we intended to return, on a meridian opposite to, or 180° from, the right one. To obviate the possibility of this, we had some chronometers constructed by Messrs. Parkinson and Frodsham, of which the hour-hand made only one revolution in the day, the twenty-four hours being marked round the dial-plate.
I may here mention, that, notwithstanding the heavy blows which the boats were constantly receiving, all our nautical and astronomical instruments were taken back to the ship without injury. This circumstance makes it, perhaps, worth while to explain, that they were lashed upon a wooden platform in the after locker of each boat, sufficiently small to be clear of the boat's sides, and playing on strong springs of whalebone, which entirely obviated the effects of the severe concussions to which they would otherwise have been subject.
We found the best preservative against this glare to be a pair of spectacles, having the glass of a bluish-green colour, and with side-screens to them.
Perhaps the name of this bay, from the Dutch word Treuren, "to lament, or be mournful," may have some reference to the graves found here.
Mr. Crowe, of Hammerfest, who lately passed a winter on the southwestern coast of Spitzbergen, in about latitude 78°, informed me that he had rain at Christmas; a phenomenon which would indeed have astonished us at any of our former wintering stations in a much lower latitude. Perhaps the circumstance of the reindeer wintering at Spitzbergen may also be considered a proof of a comparatively temperate climate.
Particularly that of Mr. Scoresby during the month of July, from 1812 to 1818 inclusive, and Captain Franklin's for July and August, 1818.