The health of the officers and men continued
also as good, or nearly so, as at the commencement of the voyage.
Considering, however, the serious loss we had sustained in the
lemon-juice, the only effectual antiscorbutic on which we could
depend during at least nine months of the year in these regions,
as well as the effects likely to result from crowding nearly one
hundred persons into the accommodation intended only for
fifty-eight, whereby the difficulty of keeping the inhabited parts
of the ship in a dry and wholesome state would have been so much
increased, there certainly seemed some reason to apprehend that a
second winter would not leave us in possession of the same
excellent health which we now happily enjoyed, while it is
possible that the difficulty and danger of either proceeding or
returning might have been increased.
A herd of musk-oxen being seen at a little distance from the
ships, a party was despatched in pursuit; and Messrs. Fisher and
Bushnan were fortunate in killing a fine bull, which separated
from the rest of the herd, being too unwieldy to make such good
way as the others. He was, however, by no means caught by our
people in fair chase; for, though these animals run with a
hobbling sort of canter, that makes them appear as if every now
and then about to fall, yet the slowest of them can far outstrip a
man.
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