“I hope they will be good enough to supply us with food for a long time,” observed the Sergeant, “and I think it is very fortunate that they had not the sense to run away before the rupture of the isthmus.”
“The birds will, however, leave us?” added Mrs. Barnett.
“Oh yes, madam, everything with wings will go, they can traverse long distances without fatigue, and, more fortunate than ourselves, they will regain terra firma.”
“Could we not use them as messengers?” asked Mrs. Barnett.
“A good idea, madam, a capital idea,” said Hobson. “We might easily catch some hundreds of these birds, and tie a paper round their necks with our exact situation written upon it. John Ross in 1848 tried similar means to acquaint the survivors of the Franklin expedition with the presence of his ships, the Enterprise and the Investigator in the Polar seas. He caught some hundreds of white foxes in traps, rivetted a copper collar round the neck of each with all the necessary information engraved upon it, and then set them free in every direction.”
“Perhaps some of the messengers may have fallen into the hands of the shipwrecked wanderers.”
“Perhaps so,” replied Hobson; “I know that an old fox was taken by Captain Hatteras during his voyage of discovery, wearing a collar half worn away and hidden beneath his thick white fur. What we cannot do with the quadrupeds, we will do with the birds.”
Chatting thus and laying plans for the future, the three explorers continued to follow the coast. They noticed no change; the abrupt cliffs covered with earth and sand showed no signs of a recent alteration in the extent of the island. It was, however, to be feared that the vast sheet of ice would be worn away at the base by the action of the warm currents, and on this point Hobson was naturally anxious.
By eleven o’clock in the morning the eight miles between Capes Bathurst and Eskimo had been traversed. A few traces of the encampment of Kalumah’s party still remained; of course the snow huts had entirely disappeared, but some cinders and walrus bones marked the spot.
The three explorers halted here for a short time, they intended to pass the few short hours of the night at Walruses’ Bay, which they hoped to reach In a few hours. They breakfasted seated on a slightly rising ground covered with a scanty and stunted herbage. Before their eyes lay the ocean bounded by a clearly-defined sea-horizon, without a sail or an iceberg to break the monotony of the vast expanse of water.
“Should you be very much surprised if some vessel came in sight now, Lieutenant?” inquired Mrs. Barnett.
“I should be very agreeably surprised, madam,” replied Hobson. “It is not at all uncommon for whalers to come as far north as this, especially now that the Arctic Ocean is frequented by whales and chacholots, but you must remember that it is the 23rd July, and the summer is far advanced. The whole fleet of whaling vessels is probably now in Gulf Kotzebue, at the entrance to the strait. Whalers shun the sudden changes in the Arctic Ocean, and with good reason. They dread being shut in the ice; and the icebergs, avalanches, and, ice fields they avoid, are the very things for which we earnestly pray.”
“They will come, Lieutenant,” said Long; “have patience, in another two months the waves will no longer break upon the shores of Cape Eskimo.”
“Cape Eskimo!” observed Mrs. Barnett with a smile. “That name, like those we gave to the other parts of the peninsula, may turn out unfortunate too. We have lost Port Barnett and Paulina River; who can tell whether Cape Eskimo and Walruses’ Bay may not also disappear in time?”
“They too will disappear, madam,” replied Hobson, “and after them the whole of Victoria Island, for nothing now connects it with a continent, and it is doomed to destruction. This result is inevitable, and our choice of geographical names will be thrown away; but fortunately the Royal Society has not yet adopted them, and Sir Roderick Murchison will have nothing to efface on his maps.”
“One name he will,” exclaimed the Sergeant.
“Which?” inquired Hobson.
“Cape Bathurst,” replied Long.
“Ah, yes, you are right. Cape Bathurst must now be removed from maps of the Polar regions.”
Two hours’ rest were all the explorers cared for, and at one o’clock they prepared to resume their journey.
Before starting Hobson once more looked round him from the summit of Cape Eskimo; but seeing nothing worthy of notice, he rejoined Mrs. Barnett and Sergeant Long.
“Madam,” he said, addressing the lady, “you have not forgotten the family of natives we met here last winter?”
“Oh no, I have always held dear little Kalumah in friendly remembrance. She promised to come and see us again at Fort Hope, but she will not be able to do so. But why do you ask me about the natives now?”
“Because I remember something to which, much to my regret, I did not at the time attach sufficient importance.”
“What was that?”
“You remember the uneasy surprise the men manifested at finding a big a factory at the foot of Cape Bathurst.”
“Oh yes, perfectly.”
“You remember that I tried to make out what the natives meant, and that I could not do so?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well,” added Hobsou, “I know now why they shook their heads. From tradition, experience, or something, the Eskimo knew what the peninsula really was, they knew we had not built on firm ground. But as things had probably remained as they were for centuries, they thought there was no immediate danger, and that it was not worth while to explain themselves.”
“Very likely you are right,” replied Mrs. Barnett; “but I feel sure that Kalumah had no suspicion of her companion’s fears, or she would have warned us.”
Hobson quite agreed with Mrs. Barnett, and Sergeant Long observed—
“It really seems to have been by a kind of fatality that we settled ourselves upon this peninsula just before it
