It is useless, however, to dwell longer on this melancholy record. Kane saw that to abandon the brig was now the only resource: the ice held it fast, there was no probability of its being released, and a third winter in Rensselaer Bay would have been death to the whole party. As soon, therefore, as the return of spring in some measure recruited the health of his followers, he made the necessary preparations for departure; and on the 20th of May the entire ship’s company bade farewell to the _Advance_, and set out on their homeward route. With considerable difficulty and arduous labour they hauled their boats across the rough, hummocky ice, and reached the open sea. On the 17th of June they embarked, and steered for Upernavik, which port they calculated upon reaching in fifty-six days. When they got fairly clear of the land, and in the course of the great ice-drift southward, they found their boats so frail and leaky that they could be kept afloat only by constant bailing; a labour which told heavily on men already weakened with disease and want. Starvation stared them in the face, when happily they fell in with and captured a large seal, which they devoured voraciously; and this opportune help recruited their failing energies. Thenceforth they were in no lack of food, as seals were plentiful; and early in August, after living for eighty-four days in the open air, they found themselves under the comfortable roofs of Upernavik, enjoying the hospitable welcome of the generous Danes. Dr. Kane returned to New York on the 11th of October 1855, after an absence of thirty months. His discoveries had been important, his heroism worthy of the race from which he sprung, and none can deny that he had well merited the honours he received. Unfortunately, a frame never very robust had been broken down by the trials of two Arctic winters; and this gallant explorer passed away on the 16th of February 1857, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. * * * * * In 1860, Dr. Hayes, the companion of Dr. Kane, took the command of an expedition intended to complete the survey of Kennedy Channel, and to reach, if it were possible, the North Pole. His schooner, the _United States_, was brought up for the winter at Port Foulke, about twenty miles south of Rensselaer Harbour; and early in the following April, Dr. Hayes set out on a sledge and boat journey across the sound, and along the shores of Grinnell Land. From the eloquent record of his adventures, which does so much credit to his literary skill, “An Arctic Boat Journey,” we have already quoted some stirring passages; but the following extract we may be allowed to repeat, on account of the clear light it throws upon the nature of the difficulties Hayes encountered on his northward advance:--