After much discussion as to the ways and means, we laid down the keel and set up the stem and stern. We next commenced on the ribs, which puzzled us much more to shape them, so as to make the sides of the form we wished, and one side to correspond with the other. However, there is an old saying, that "Where there's a will there's a way;" and though not always true, it was so in our case, though we expended six times as much labour and time as we should have done had there been a good carpenter among us to superintend our work. We were unwearied in our labours; we worked all day, and a great part of the night too, for we all felt that on getting it done in time depended our escape from those icy regions that year. I have described our imprisonment as passed more pleasantly than we could have expected; but yet none of us desired to spend another winter in the same way, and most of us had some friends or relations whom we wished again to see, and to relieve from the anxiety they must be feeling on our account. We should have worked on Sundays, but Andrew Thompson urged us to desist. Some of the men answered that we were working in a good cause, as we should the sooner be able to return home. "It is the Lord's day, and He says we shall not work on it," answered Andrew. "Therefore it is wrong to work on it; and depend upon it He never intends us to do wrong that good may come of it. We are building a vessel, which we think may be the means of saving us; but He may have arranged differently, and after all our labour it might prove our destruction." Terence, Tom, and I at once said we would follow Andrew's advice; and one or two of the others added that they were not going to work for us if we chose to be idle, so the Sabbath became a day of rest. The Esquimaux wondered when they observed this, and inquired why every seventh day we desisted from work, though so anxious to get our ship built. Andrew then explained to them that we were commanded to do so by the God we worshipped, and that if we disobeyed His laws He would be angry with us, and that we could not expect to prosper. Our knowledge of their language was unfortunately far too imperfect to enable us to impart any of the great tenets of Christianity to them; but I do believe that this reply, and the exhibition of obedience to the commands of a Being whom none of us saw, yet willingly obeyed, opened their minds, more than any sermon could have done, to receive those truths whenever they may be offered to them. Many a time in their snow tents will those untutored savages, during the long night of winter, talk of the God of the Kabbinae (the Europeans), and worship Him unknowingly in His works. They are people of inquiring minds, very capable of receiving instruction; and from their habits and dispositions, I feel assured that were the great light of the gospel placed before them, they would gladly receive its truths, and be brought into Christ's flock of true believers.