iled, though some common ship-peas, planted
by the men, throve extremely well.

On the 12th of May, some ptarmigans were seen. These were hailed as a
sure omen of returning summer. Several of the men went out on shooting
excursions; and, being exposed, for several hours, to the glare of the
sun and snow, became affected with that painful inflammation in the
eyes, called "snow-blindness." As a preventive of this complaint, a
piece of black crape was given to each man, to be worn as a kind of
short veil, attached to the hat. This was found to be sufficiently
efficacious. But a more convenient mode was adopted by some of the
officers: they took out the glasses from spectacles, and substituted
black or green crape in their place.

In the beginning of May, the men cut the ice round the Hecla. This was
done by means of axes and saws, and with astonishing labour; for the ice
was still more than six feet thick. On the 17th, the operation was
completed, and the ships were once more afloat.

Captain Parry and Captain Sabine, accompanied by ten other persons,
officers and men, set off, on the 1st of June, to make a tour through
the island. They took with them tents, fuel, and provisions; and
carried their luggage in a small, light cart, to which the sailors
occasionally fastened their blankets, by way of sails. They travelled by
night, as well to have the benefit which any warmth of the sun might
give during their hours of rest, as to avoid the glare of its light upon
the snow. The vegetable productions which they observed, were chiefly
the dwarf willow, sorrel, poppy, saxifrage, and ranunculus. The animals
were mice, deer, a musk ox, a pair of swallows, ducks, geese, plovers,
and ptarmigans; with some of which they occasionally varied their fare.
The tracks, both of deer and musk oxen, were numerous; and one deer
followed the party for some time, and gambolled round them, at a
distance of only thirty yards. The soil of the island was, in general,
barren; but, in some places, it was rich, and abounded with the finest
moss. On one part of the beach, the travellers found a point of land
eighty feet above the sea: this they named _Point Nias_, after one of
the officers of the party; and they had the patience to raise on it, as
a memorial of their exertions, a monument of ice, of conical form,
twelve feet broad at the base, and as many in height. They enclosed
within the mass, in a tin cylinder, an account of the party who had
erec