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Danish settlement. Their progress thitherward was one scene of danger and toil, while the accumulated evils of every succeeding day threatened that termination of their sufferings, which nature seemed no longer able to withstand. The boats were drawn over large fields of ice, until a spot of open water could he found, in which, again afloat, they were soon impeded by the bay or lighter ice which formed around them, when the oars being no longer useful to them, nor the ice strong enough to allow their passage, the crew were compelled to remain in their boats till next day, when all was solid, to admit their being taken on the ice and dragged on as before.
For many days this labour and sorrow continued, until at last, a ray of hope of their deliverance being at hand, cheered their weary souls on their reaching the northernmost Danish settlement, called Opiernawnck, in lat. 73 deg. The prospect of assistance here, proved however almost quite delusive—the poor residents, a man and his wife, having barely provisions for their own subsistence during the winter, so that all that they could do for them was to allow them to remain three days, to recruit their strength sufficiently to attempt the next station. Some of the natives, called in the language of the country Yacks, were sent forward with them as guides; and after encountering a series of like calamities to those to which they had already been exposed, they reached, about the 28th November, Four Island Points, in lat. 69 deg. a distance of 240 miles—Before they could gain
