I
accordingly decided to make S.W. by W. to cross it, but, in doing so, I
was hardly out of sight of land, when a northern storm overtook me
toward midnight; before I could think, the little sail was all but
whiffed away, and the kayak upset. I only saved it by the happy chance
of being near a floe with an ice-foot, which, projecting under the
water, gave me foot-hold; and I lay on the floe in a mooning state the
whole night under the storm, for I was half drowned.
And at once, on recovering myself, I abandoned all thought of whalers
and of Europe for that year. Happily, my instruments, &c., had been
saved by the kayak-deck when she capsized.
* * * * *
A hundred yards inland from the shore-rim, in a circular place where
there was some moss and soil, I built myself a semi-subterranean Eskimo
den for the long Polar night. The spot was quite surrounded by high
sloping walls of basalt, except to the west, where they opened in a
three-foot cleft to the shore, and the ground was strewn with slabs and
boulders of granite and basalt.
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