bird-meat
must from this time form our daily ration.

So far we had generally coasted the fast ice; it had given us an
occasional resting-place and refuge, and we were able sometimes to
reinforce our stores of provisions by our guns. But it made our progress
tediously slow, and our stock of small shot was so nearly exhausted that
I was convinced our safety depended on increase of speed. I determined
to try the more open sea.

For the first two days the experiment was a failure. We were surrounded
by heavy fogs; a southwest wind brought the outside pack upon us, and
obliged us to haul up on the drifting ice. We were thus carried to the
northward, and lost about twenty miles. My party, much overworked, felt
despondingly the want of the protection of the land-floes.

Nevertheless, I held to my purpose, steering south-southwest as nearly
as the leads would admit, and looking constantly for the thinning out of
the pack that hangs around the western water.

Although the low diet and exposure to wet had again reduced our party,
there was no apparent relaxation of energy, and it was not until some
days later that I found their strength seriously giving way.

It is a little curious that the effect of a short allowance of food does
not show itself in hunger. The first symptom is a loss of power, often
so imperceptibly brought on that it becomes evident only by an accident.
I well remember our look of blank amazement as, one day, the order
being given to haul the "Hope" over a tongue of ice, we found she would
not budge. At first I thought it was owing to the wetness of the
snow-covered surface in which her runners were; but, as there was a
heavy gale blowing outside, and I was extremely anxious to get her on to
a larger floe to prevent being drifted off, I lightened her cargo and
set both crews upon her. In the land of promise off Crimson Cliffs such
a force would have trundled her like a wheelbarrow: we could almost have
borne her upon our backs. Now with incessant labor and standing hauls
she moved at a snail's pace.

The "Faith" was left behind and barely escaped destruction. The outside
pressure cleft the floe asunder, and we saw our best boat with all our
stores drifting rapidly away from us. The sight produced an almost
hysterical impression upon our party. Two days of want of bread, I am
sure, would have destroyed us; and we had now left us but eight pounds
of shot in all. To launch the "Hope" again, and rescue her c