Then Kane decided to leave the ship and try to reach some settlement on the Greenland coast. The men promised to follow him and to obey him in all things. They knew the danger of the journey, but they also knew that a third winter on the Advance would probably cost them their lives. At this time the company had provisions enough to last them thirty-six days. These provisions were packed in small boats, ready to be dragged over the ice to open water. All the baggage and the articles necessary for use in cooking, eating, and sleeping, were at last ready to be placed on the sledges. Four of the men were so ill that they also had to be carried.
Each man in the party wore a woolen underdress and an Eskimo suit of fur. The men's boots were of their own make, fashioned of canvas and lined with walrus hide. Inside of these boots each man wore another pair, made of carpeting which had been taken from the cabin of the Advance. To save themselves from becoming snow-blind, they wore large goggles, made by cutting a small slit in a piece of wood. Some had entire masks made of gutta percha.
It was May when Kane and his companions bade farewell to the brig and set out to cover the thirteen hundred miles of ice and water which lay between them and the place where they hoped to find a settlement. Yet they did not despair. The men who were able to work, dragged sledges and boats as far as the spot selected for a camp. Here they built a hut or erected a tent for the sick, making them as comfortable as they could. Then the workers went back over the same route and brought along the baggage, which had been left behind because they could not carry it all at one time. Thus they were obliged to travel back over each day's march, and each following day
