women, who were very grateful for his generosity. The whalers seriously
object to giving things away to the natives, as it renders their system
of barter more difficult. It would be a greater benefit to all these
tribes to send one or two of their most intelligent young men to the
United States or to England for a few years, so that they could protect
them against the rapacity of the masters and owners of whaling ships.
They could then get something like a fair equivalent for the goods they
have to dispose of. The natives are better whalemen than any of the
seamen who come to this country, and they should certainly receive more
than a handful of powder and a few bullets for hundreds of pounds of
bone, worth about $2.50 a pound. Shortly after daylight the natives
departed, and a breeze springing up we set sail upon our journey.

Most of the day we were in full sight of the land, which I regarded
with keen interest. It certainly seemed the most desolate-looking
region I ever saw--a succession of hills of bald rock, with occasional
patches of snow and moss; not a house, nor a tree, nor, in fact, any
sign of animal or vegetable life--and yet I longed to put my foot upon
that barren soil and commence the work we had before us.

One of the principal annoyances of all sailing-masters in the Arctic
regions is the sluggish action of the magnetic needle as they approach
the magnetic pole, and it was a difficulty from which we were not
exempt. The land all looks so much alike that even when running in
plain sight of it it requires the greatest familiarity with the
principal points to be able to steer by them. During the night of
Friday, August 2, we, by some mysterious operation, got in between
Nottingham and Salisbury Islands, when we thought we were beyond the
Digges. We found a bad reef, just on a level with the water's edge,
about eight miles north-west of the north-west point of Nottingham