“It was now,” says Kennedy, “the 10th of September. Winter was evidently fast setting in, and, from the distance the ship had been carried during that disastrous night, whether out to sea or down the inlet we could not conjecture—there was no hope of our being able to rejoin her, at least during the present season. There remained, therefore, no alternative but to make up our minds to pass the winter, if necessary, where we were. The first object to be attended to was the erecting of some sort of shelter against the daily increasing inclemency of the weather; and for this purpose, the launch, left by Sir James Ross, was selected. Her main mast was laid on supports at the bow and stern, about nine feet in height, and by spreading two of her sails over this a very tolerable roof was obtained. A stove was set up in the body of the boat, with the pipes running through the roof; and we were soon sitting by a comfortable fire, which, after our long exposure to the wet and cold, we stood very much in need of.” [Sidenote: _RETURN OF THE PRINCE ALBERT_] It was the intention of Captain Kennedy to make sledge journeys to distant points in the hope of sighting the _Prince Albert_ or discovering traces of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_,—but before the necessary preparations were completed, some five weeks after their separation from the ship, a shot echoed through the stillness, and Lieutenant Bellot and seven of the crew of the _Prince Albert_ came to their rescue. After two previous attempts to find their long-lost comrades, they had succeeded in dragging the jolly-boat all the way from Batty Bay, where the _Prince Albert_ was securely moored. Of this happy reunion, Captain Kennedy writes:— “It can hardly be a matter of surprise that the reaction in the state of our feelings, consequent upon this unexpected meeting with our long-lost friends, should have been striking and immediate, and in direct proportion to our former solicitude and dejection. “It was but five weeks ‘by the chime’ since our disastrous separation from the _Prince Albert_; but they were five _years_ of dreary anxiety and despondency fast merging into something like despair. We had a jovial evening, let the reader be well assured, in our little launch that 17th of October, and a jovial housewarming, out of Her Majesty’s stores at Port Leopold, enjoyed none the less from the absence of any grim vision of a long reckoning to discharge with ‘mine host’ on the morrow. And we kept it up, too, let me tell you, with long yarns of our adventures, and rough old sea songs; and in brimming cups of famous chocolate, ‘cheering but not inebriating,’ drank most loyally (at Her Majesty’s expense) a happy meeting with H. M. S. _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and their gallant crews.