The increasing warmth of the weather now enabling us to work out of doors for several hours together, it was once more seriously proposed that we should begin to build a boat, or, as some insisted on calling her, a vessel, to carry us home. I asked Andrew what he thought on the subject, for he had not expressed any very strong opinion either one way or the other. He replied that he thought there could be no harm in trying to build a small vessel; that we had an abundance of materials and tools, with provisions; and that if we could contrive to make her seaworthy, we might manage to reach one of the places to the south constantly visited by whalers; but if not, we must be content to wait till some ship might pass in the autumn. He owned that he, for one, should not be inclined to venture out of sight of land; and that, provided we took a good supply of provisions with us, our firearms and powder, our harpoons and lances, after the experience we had had, we could not come to much harm, even if we were compelled to weather out another winter in the arctic regions. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. Having determined to build a vessel, we set to work with great energy; and we hoped by ingenuity and perseverance to make amends for our want of skill and knowledge. Our first task was to break up the wreck, and to convey it piecemeal to the bay; and in this work we were ably assisted by the Esquimaux, who understood that whatever portion we did not require was to be their perquisite. They also shrewdly suspected that we should leave them, if we went away, many of the other treasures we had in our possession. I believe, however, that they really had formed a sincere regard for us, and were sorry to find that we were about to depart; at the same time that they consoled themselves, as more civilised people are apt to do under similar circumstances, with the reflection that we should leave something behind us. We first had to carry to our store the remainder of the salted provisions; which, had they been left a single night on board after the hatches were removed, the bears would inevitably have got hold of. We then carried off such part of the deck as we required, with some of the timbers and planks. As we could not get at the keel, we were obliged to content ourselves with the mainmast, to serve as a keel for our new vessel. We laid her down close to the beach just above high-water mark, with a carriage-sledge under her, so as to be able to launch her over the ice. Our intention was to make her a vessel of about sixteen to twenty tons, which was as large as our materials would allow, and to rig her as a schooner for the same reason, and because she would thus be more easily handled.