Of the passage around the cape Hayes records: "For the space of several feet the ice-foot was not more than fifteen inches wide, and sloping. A halt was called and men and dogs crouched behind the rocks for shelter. The furious wind, still lashing the waves against the frozen shore at our feet, whirled great sheets of snow down upon us from the overhanging cliffs. We could not face the pitiless storm at our backs, and to go forward seemed impossible. Discarding my mittens and clinging with my bare hands to the crevices in the rock, I moved cautiously along the sloping shelf. Below the breaking surf yawned to receive any victim who made an inadvertent step. I shall not soon forget the joy and thankfulness with which I found myself upon the broad ice-belt at the farther side of this dangerous place. The dogs were driven forward by their native masters and, seized by the collars, were dragged around the point. The sledges were pushed along the shelf and turned on one runner and held until the dogs could stretch their traces and, bounding forward, at the word whirled them around in safety before they could topple over the precipice." Finally Van Rensselaer Harbor was reached, and the returning wanderers, blinded, frost-bitten, and exhausted, staggered on to the deck of the _Advance_. With his generous heart their old commander Kane received them with open arms and brotherly greetings. One cannot but class as astounding these human experiences, which marked the first extended relations between the men of Etah and the adventurous explorers who had come from the outside world. In this instance there had been brought face to face the hitherto unknown men of the stone age and the representatives of the high and vaunted civilization that aims to uplift and to dominate all the nations of the earth. On the one hand were the Etahs, who were actual children of the stone age--clothed in skins, without wood or metal, having neither houses nor boats, using stone utensils in their rude huts of skin or of rock, and living solely by the hunt. Following the chase with weapons of bone, through untold hardships they wrested, day by day, precarious food from their home environment--a habitat on one of the most desolate reaches of the arctic coasts. Their struggles for mere existence under these harsh conditions of uncertainty were such as--either among the men of the stone age or in the imperial cities of to-day--engender intense selfishness and lead to deadly contests in order to save the strong at the expense of the weak. On the other hand were the men of the civilized world, provided with boats, furnished with selected food, especially equipped for polar service, and armed with the best weapons. Engaged in the mission of relieving the men of Franklin's missing squadron, with their superior knowledge and their trained minds, they were supposed to be able not only to be self-reliant and self-sustaining, but also to extend aid to the needy.