On the 9th September, a party of four officers and four men, with three sledges, each drawn by eight dogs, left the ship for the westward to explore a route for subsequent crews, push forward a small depôt, and search the country for game. On the first day’s march, our halt for lunch was ludicrously uncomfortable. A cold wind blew. All our water-bottles were hermetically sealed by the freezing in of the rough wooden plugs we had hastily fitted to them. There was nothing to drink but icy cold raw rum. One or two attempted it, and only succeeded in half-choking themselves, very much to the amusement of the rest. When camping-time came, we found ourselves rounding into a narrow channel between two fine bays, whose “dumb-bell” shape at once suggested the title by which they were ever afterwards known. A strong tide in the narrow passage, representing the handle of a dumb-bell, had kept a small pool of water from freezing, leaving a hole about as large as a Trafalgar Square fountain. In this a seal was swimming about, turning his black shining head and large eyes from side to side in amazement at our appearance. All was fish that came to our net. He would at least make a good beginning for our game-bag. He was struck in the head, and consequently floated; but it was by no means a simple matter to get him out of the pool, for the ice was thin at the edges, and an unpleasantly swift-looking current was running below. Fred, our Eskimo, was equal to the occasion. Spread out flat on the ice, with a piece of cord in one hand and a batten in the other, he managed to reach the edge and secure our prize. He was rewarded for his exertions by a good share of liver for supper; indeed, no one at that time felt inclined to dispute the delicacy with him, for, by some mistake, our unpractised cook had fried a little of the blubber with it. The meat is very dark and rich, and is far from unpalatable; but if the least bit of blubber is cooked with it, it is exactly like mutton fried in cod-liver oil. This solitary “floe-rat” was the only seal shot in the Northern Sea. We had little sleep that night, the novelty of the circumstances, the low temperature of our beds, and the wind, which threatened to blow the tent over, kept most of us awake. The dogs too were behaving in an extraordinary manner. Something evidently made them uneasy; there was none of the usual snarling and growling going on. All at once there was a tremendous hubbub. We rushed out, and discovered that the brutes had scented out the spot where we had buried and _cached_ our seal. They had succeeded in digging it up, and not a fragment was left. Fortunately, the skin and blubber were buried separately, and were still safe. Next morning our party subdivided. Three travelled forward with the sledges to deposit the depôt as far as possible northward and westward. Petersen, the Dane, experienced in snow-house building in Hayes’ Expedition, set about constructing