Another futile attempt was made to attract the attention of those on the ship, and Captain Tyson endeavoured to launch the boats and reach her, but without success. Gales now forced the floe out of sight of the ship, and the forlorn men set to work to make the best of a desperate situation. By late November, the effects of exposure and want of food began to show themselves; some of the men trembled when they tried to walk; the children often cried with hunger, although all was given to them that could possibly be spared. The seals brought in were received with gratitude; the invaluable success of Joe and Hans was fully appreciated; without them, the chances of life would have been very much diminished. So keen had the appetites of the party become that the seal-meat was eaten uncooked with the skin and hair on. December 25, Captain Tyson records:— “Our Christmas dinner was gorgeous. We had each a small piece of frozen ham, two whole biscuits of hard bread, a few mouthfuls of dried apples, and also a few swallows of seal’s blood! The last of the ham, the last of the apples, and the last of our present supply of seal’s blood! So ends our Christmas feast!” “New Year’s dinner. I have dined to-day on about two feet of _frozen entrails_ and a little blubber; and I only wish we had plenty even of that, but we have not.” On January 23, 1873, Captain Tyson makes the following observation:— “I was thinking the other evening how strange it would sound to hear a good hearty laugh; but I think there never was a party so destitute of every element of merriment as this. I cannot remember ever having seen a smile on the countenance of any one on this floe, except when Herron came out of his hut and saw the sun shining for the first time.” The months of February and March passed dismally enough, with varying fortune with the hunters. Toward the end of March, the condition of the party was growing rapidly worse. On March 3, Joe shot a monster _oogjook_—a large kind of seal. It was, indeed, a great deliverance to those who had been reduced to one meal of a few ounces a day. “Hannah had but two small pieces of blubber left,” continues Captain Tyson, “enough for the lamp for two days; the men had but little, and Hans had only enough for one day—and now, just on the verge of absolute destitution, comes along this monstrous _oogjook_, the only one of the seal species seen to-day; and the fellow, I have no doubt, weighs six or seven hundred pounds, and will furnish, I should think, thirty gallons of oil. Truly we are rich indeed!” “April 1st. We have been the ‘fools of fortune’ now for five months and a half.”