Having set off soon after midnight, at the distance of half a mile in a N.b.E. direction we came to a piece of frozen water, half a mile in length and two hundred yards wide, situated on the south side of the range of hills which bound the prospect from Winter Harbour.  The ice on the surface of this lake or pond was in some parts nearly dissolved, and in all too soft to allow us to cross it.  We halted at half past six A.M., and pitched the tents on the hardest ground we could find, but it became quite swampy in the course of the day.  We killed seven ptarmigan, and saw two plovers and two deer, being the first we had met with this season, with a fawn so small as to leave no doubt of its having been dropped since the arrival of the female upon the island.  They were so wild as not to allow us to approach them within a quarter of a mile.  The day was fine, with light and variable airs; the thermometer stood at 34 deg. in the shade at seven A.M., at which time it was unfortunately broken.

We again set forward at two A.M. on the 3d, crossing one or two ravines, running E.N.E. and W.S.W., in which there was a large collection of snow, but as yet no appearance of water in the bottom of them.  Captain Sabine and myself, being considerably ahead of the rest of the party, had sat down to wait for them, when a fine reindeer came trotting up, and played round us for a quarter of an hour, within thirty yards.  We had no gun, nor do I know that we should have killed it if we had, there being already as much weight upon the cart as the men could well drag, and having no fuel to spare for cooking; besides, we felt it would have been but an ill return for the confidence which he seemed willing to place in us.  On hearing our people talking on the opposite side of the ravine, the deer immediately crossed over, and went directly up to them, with very little caution; and they being less scrupulous than we were, one or two shots were immediately fired at him, but without effect; on which he again crossed over to where we were sitting, approaching us nearer than before.  As soon as we rose up and walked on, he accompanied us like a dog, sometimes trotting ahead of us, and then returning within forty or fifty yards.  When we halted, at six A.M., to make the usual observations, he remained by us till the rest of the party came up, and then trotted off.  The reindeer is by no means a graceful animal; its high shoulders, and an awkward stoop in its head, giving it rather a deformed appearance.  Our new acquaintance had no horns; he was of a brownish colour, with a black saddle, a broad black rim round the eyes, and very white about the tail.  We observed that, whenever he was about to set off, he made a sort of playful gambol, by rearing on his hind legs.