The following day being fine, I took my
travelling party to the top of the northeast hill, in order to try
the cart which had been constructed for carrying the tents and
baggage, and which appeared to answer very well. The view from
this hill was not such as to offer much encouragement to our hopes
of future advancement to the westward. The sea still presented the
same unbroken and continuous surface of solid and impenetrable
ice, and this ice could not be less than from six to seven feet in
thickness, as we knew it to be about the ships. When to this
circumstance was added the consideration that scarcely the
slightest symptoms of thawing had yet appeared, and that in three
weeks from this period the sun would again begin to decline to the
southward, it must be confessed that the most sanguine and
enthusiastic among us had some reason to be staggered in the
expectations they had formed of the complete accomplishment of our
enterprise.
CHAPTER VIII.
Journey across Melville Island to the Northern Shore, and Return
to the Ships by a different Route.
The weather being favourable on the morning of the 1st of June, I
made such arrangements as were necessary previous to my departure
on our intended journey.
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