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The memory of that inexpressible air, of the great ice-girt lakes of deep blue water, of the cloudless sky shading away into a light green and then into a cold yellow at the horizon, of the noisy companionable birds, of the huge, greasy-backed water animals, of the slug-like seals, startlingly black against the dazzling whiteness of the ice all of it will come back to a man in his dreams, and will seem little more than some fantastic dream itself, go removed is it from the main stream of his life.

Down the mountain the fugitives went, as silent as their shadows; and at last, when one might hardly know if it were the sheen of the moon that still illuminated the wan and wintry scene, or the reflection from the snow, or the dawning of the dark-gray day, the river came in sight, all a rippling, steely expanse under the chill wind between its ice-girt crags and snowy banks.

Early on 26th January we left these inhospitable coasts, and those who were on deck watched the familiar rocky, snow-capped shores fast disappearing from view. We had been happy there before disaster overtook our Expedition, but now we were glad to leave, and some of us must have realised that these ice-girt rocks and mountains were not meant for human beings to associate their lives with.

Those who watched throughout that long day as we triumphantly, though slowly, broke our ice-girt way, saw seals between the fields of ice, porpoises and whales spouting and bounding in their glorious freedom, sea-gulls and small red birds flying about.

The one went south and the other north, but their field was the same the surface of the frozen sea and the margin of the ice-girt shore. Yet how different their experiences and results were the sequel will show.

He fully appreciated the advantages to be derived from a trading-post near their ice-girt lands, and resolved, when opportunity should offer, to do all in his power to strengthen the friendship now subsisting between the Indians and the Esquimaux of Ungava, and to induce his countrymen, if possible, to travel south towards the establishment on James's Bay.

The one went south and the other north; but their field was the same the surface of the frozen sea and the margin of the ice-girt shore. Yet how different their experiences and results were the sequel will show.

No one knows now where it is; but in ice-girt Greenland, where the northern lights on wintry nights flash to the natives their message from the souls that have gone home, his memory will live when that of the North Pole seeker whom the world applauds is long forgotten. Hans Egede was their great man, their hero. He was more, he was their friend.