the ice till her timbers should rot away with time and exposure.
After a month's toil the party encamped on Fury Beach, having been obliged to carry one of their number during the last few days of their wanderings. Here they erected a rude house, and began laboriously to repair three boats left by them at that spot many months before. At length the ice showed signs of breaking; the boats were stored with provisions for two months, some beds and blanketing, and other useful articles, and the party started on their voyage. Making their way as well as they could by day and night through that vast silent sea of floating ice, they succeeded in reaching the junction of Barrow's Straits and Prince Regent's Inlet about the middle of September; but here, to their bitter disappointment, they found all further progress stopped by a continuous solid mass of ice, which gave no hope of breaking up that season. With heavy hearts they found themselves compelled once more to return to Fury Beach for another winter, or perhaps never to find their way again even so far.
The winter was passed in the usual way—the men preserving their cheerfulness as well as they could by such amusements as their condition allowed them; but sickness was always at work among them. Want of sufficient employment, short allowance of food, and the inevitable lowness of spirits, produced by the sight of the monotonous expanse of snow and ice, preyed upon the health of all. It was at this time that the carpenter died—a great loss to the party. In April their spirits were again revived by new preparations for escape from their dismal prison. By the end of June they had
