n scream and dance with joy, and on his coming up
it was dead.

On examining it, we discovered that the last ball had passed through the
heart. From the habits of the Esquimaux, I expected that my friend
would have lost no time in extracting a dinner out of the ox; but I
found that I had done him injustice, and that his prudence was more
powerful than his stomach.

He was satisfied with mixing some of the warm blood with snow, thus
dissolving as much as he required to quench his thirst; and he then
immediately proceeded to skin the animal, knowing very well, what I
might have recollected, that the operation would shortly become
impossible in consequence of the severity of the cold, which would soon
freeze the whole into an impracticable mass.

For the same reason he divided the carcase into four parts, that we
might be better able to lift it. As we were unable to carry off our
prize, we built a snow-hut over it, setting up marks that we might know
the spot again. We however took away a small portion for a meal, which
on reaching our abode we cooked, and found excellent.

We were up by daylight to go in search of the other ox, the traces of
which we had seen. We searched for it for two hours, when we discovered
it grazing on the top of a hill free from snow. There was only one path
by which it could escape. That we occupied; and as we advanced rapidly
towards it, our shouts and the loud barking of the dogs alarmed it.

First it seemed as if it would rush at us, but its heart failed it and
it turned and fled. There was a precipice before it; but it either did
not see it, or fancied that it could leap to the bottom in safety. We
observed it disappear, and I thought it was lost, and on reaching the
edge of the cliff it was nowhere to be seen. My friend, however,
beckoned me to accompany him, and winding down the hill, we found the
animal at the bottom of the precipice, killed by the fall.

It was cut up in the same way as the first, and a snow-hut was built
over it.

We employed the next day in bringing up the flesh and skins of the oxen
to our hut; and fortunate it was that we did so, for it snowed so hard
that I do not think we should otherwise have been able to find the spot
where we had left them. We were out looking for more oxen, when, being
on some high ground, I saw some dark objects to the north, advancing
over the snow in a line which would bring them to the foot of the hill
where we were.

I p