Very little that is worthy of note occurred during the first winter. The monotony of the excessively dull season was, however, relieved by the appearance of a party of Eskimos, who proved to be thoroughly friendly, except on one occasion when they nearly assassinated half the party because they imagined that they had caused the death of one of the members of their tribe by witchcraft. The white men, by the way, won their sinister reputation in a rather curious way. One of the Eskimos had had the misfortune to lose a leg during an altercation with a bear. The ship’s carpenter, seeing how severely handicapped the man was, thoughtfully provided him with a wooden leg, to the amazement and delight of himself and his fellows, who imagined that their new friends must be possessed of some very extraordinary powers to be able to provide the legless with fresh means of locomotion. One of them was so fascinated by the carpenter’s ingenuity that, having done some slight damage to one of his own legs, he suggested that it would not be amiss if he were provided with a new one. On being informed, however, that it would be necessary to cut the other off first, he regarded the scheme with less enthusiasm. With a view to obtaining from the Eskimos such geographical information as they might possess, Ross would frequently invite parties of them to dinner in his cabin. They did not, however, look upon English food with much favour. Salt meat, pudding, rice, or sweets they regarded with abhorrence, and the only articles of English diet that they would touch were soup and salmon, which they would wash down with beakers of oil, wine proving not at all to their tastes. It was not until September 17 that the _Victory_ was floating in open water again, but her release was destined to be short-lived, for after drifting about for a fortnight, the explorers found themselves frozen in again on September 30, only a few miles from the spot at which they had spent the previous winter. For some months it had been pretty evident, from the variations of the compass and the dip of the magnetic needle, that they were very near that mysterious centre of terrestrial magnetism, the North Magnetic Pole, and Ross came to the conclusion that his present enforced sojourn among the ice might be profitably employed in determining the point exactly. Accordingly, at the end of May 1831, the younger Ross set out with a party, armed with the instruments necessary for making the discovery which had occupied the thoughts of Parry on his earlier journey. They travelled westwards over the Boothia wilderness, and at eight o’clock on the morning of June 1 they realised that they had discovered the object of their search.