ome on
before it was finished. The plan he proposed, and which was adopted,
was to divide it into two compartments, one for a store-house, the other
for our dwelling and cooking room. The latter was fifteen feet square
and eight feet high, with a sloping roof, and a hole, with a trap in the
top, to let out the air and to serve for a chimney. All this would
require a great deal of wood, besides the turf and stones with which we
also proposed to build it. We had no means of forming windows; but, as
we had heard it was always night during the winter, we thought we should
not want them.

The next morning we were off again for the wood, as well as some bears'
flesh and some of the other provisions. Terence, who managed so well
with the natives, remained as before, and he reported that they had
come, and seemed much surprised with the work we had performed; that
they had examined the tracks of the sledges and the additional stores,
and then, after a great deal of talking, had returned from whence they
came.

The following morning we were disturbed by a loud noise of dogs barking
and men shouting; and on looking out of our tents, we saw our Esquimaux
friends looming through the twilight, each of them accompanied by a
troop of seven dogs harnessed to a sledge formed of the jaw-bone of a
whale and sealskins. They came close up to us, talking very rapidly,
and pointing in the direction in which the ship lay.

When we prepared to start on our daily expedition, they showed their
evident intention of accompanying us. David and some of the other men
did not like this, and were afraid that if they saw the ship they might
appropriate everything on board; but Andrew assured us that he was
certain they had no such intention, and that their purpose was to assist
us, otherwise, as they might easily have tracked us along the ice, they
would have set off by themselves.

The Esquimaux laughed very much when they saw us trudging along with our
clumsy heavy sledges; and calling their dogs to stop with a _Wo Wo-hoa_,
just as a carter does in England, they beckoned each of us to get on to
a sledge behind each of them, and placing our sledges on theirs, away we
drove. Off went the dogs at full gallop, they guiding them with their
whips and their voices along the smoother portions of the ice. It was
amusing and very exhilarating to feel one's self whirled along at so
rapid a rate, after being so long accustomed to the slow movements of