The course had been in a general north-western direction from the Churchill River, but on the 10th of June the party abandoned the rivers and lakes and struck out into the barren lands. The following narrative by Hearne is interesting, because up to that moment no servant of the Company had ever seen a live musk ox, that "now rare denizen of the northern solitudes." "We had not walked above seven or eight miles before we saw three musk oxen grazing by the side of a small lake. The Indians immediately went in pursuit of them, and as some were expert hunters they soon killed the whole of them. This was, no doubt, very fortunate, but to our great mortification before we could get one of them skinned, such a fall of rain came on as to put it out of our power to make a fire, which, even in the finest weather, could only be made of moss, as we were nearly a hundred miles from any woods. This was poor comfort for people who had not broken their fast for four or five days. Necessity, however, has no law, and having before been initiated into the method of eating raw meat, we were the better prepared for this repast. But this was by no means so well relished, either by me or the Southern Indians, as either raw venison or raw fish had been; for the flesh of the musk-ox is not only coarse and tough, but smells and tastes so strong of musk as to make it very disagreeable when raw, though it is tolerable eating when properly cooked. The weather continued so remarkably bad, accompanied with constant heavy rain, snow and sleet, and our necessities were so great by the time the weather permitted us to make a fire, that we had nearly eaten to the amount of one buffalo quite raw." [Sidenote: Hardships of the journey.] What severities of hardship were endured by our traveller may be judged from his description. "We have fasted many times," he declares, "two whole days and nights; twice upwards of three days, and once, while at Shethaunee, near seven days, during which we tasted not a mouthful of anything except a few cranberries, water, scraps of old leather and burnt bones. On these pressing occasions I have frequently seen the Indians examine their wardrobe, which consisted chiefly of skin clothing, and consider what part could best be spared; sometimes a piece of an old, half-rotten deerskin, and others a pair of old shoes, were sacrificed to alleviate extreme hunger."