On the 1st of October, Captain Sabine’s servant, having been at some distance from the ships to examine a fox-trap, was pursued by a large white bear, which followed his footsteps the whole way to the ships, where he was wounded by several balls, but made his escape after all.  This bear, which was the only one we saw during our stay in Winter Harbour, was observed to be more purely white than any we had before seen, the colour of these animals being generally that of a dirtyish yellow when contrasted with the whiteness of the ice and snow.

Some deer being seen near the ships on the 10th, a party was despatched after them, some of whom having wounded a stag, and being led on by the ardour of pursuit, forgot my order that every person should be on board before sunset, and did not return till late, after we had suffered much apprehension their account.  John Pearson, a marine belonging to the Griper, who was the last that returned on board, had his hands severely frostbitten, having imprudently gone away without mittens, and with a musket in his hand.  A party of our people most providentially found him, although the night was very dark, just as he had fallen down a steep bank of snow, and was beginning to feel that degree of torpor and drowsiness which, if indulged, inevitably proves fatal.  When he was brought on board his fingers were quite stiff, and bent into the shape of that part of the musket which he had been carrying; and the frost had so far destroyed the animation in his fingers on one hand, that it was necessary to amputate three of them a short time after, notwithstanding all the care and attention paid to him by the medical gentlemen.  The effect which exposure to severe frost has in benumbing the mental as well as the corporeal faculties, was very striking in this man, as well as in two of the young gentlemen who returned after dark, and of whom we were anxious to make inquiries respecting Pearson.  When I sent for them into my cabin, they looked wild, spoke thick and indistinctly, and it was impossible to draw from them a rational answer to any of our questions.  After being on board for a short time, the mental faculties appeared gradually to return with the returning circulation, and it was not till then that a looker-on could easily persuade himself that they had not been drinking too freely.  In order to guard in some measure against the danger of persons losing their way, which was more and more to be apprehended as the days became shorter and the ground more covered with snow, which gives such a dreary sameness to the country, we erected on all the hills within two or three miles of the harbour, finger-posts pointing towards the ships.

I have before remarked that all the water which we made use of while within the polar circle was procured from snow either naturally or artificially dissolved.  Soon after the ships were laid up for the winter, it was necessary to have recourse entirely to the latter process, which added materially to the expenditure of fuel during the winter months.  The snow for this purpose was dug out of the drifts which had formed upon the ice round the ships, and dissolved in the coppers.  We found it necessary always to strain the water thus procured, on account of the sand which the heavy snowdrifts brought from the island, after which it was quite pure and wholesome.