“What follows is very sad; it is touchingly told in the journal, and I will read the account as it is there given:--‘The atmosphere now became so thick, that, had we not been troubled with snow-blindness, we could not have seen more than a few yards, and could not possibly have made our way in an unknown country.
“‘These Newfoundland fogs are fearful things; they surpass, indeed, the imagination of Europeans. You seem to be actually in cloud-land; for nothing but cloud is visible above, around, and beneath. This state of things lasts often for days; now it is a bright white, as though the day were struggling through; now it becomes shaded, and now almost night. Sometimes there are little openings, and you catch a clean vista between two walls of vapour, but it is presently shut out by the rolling masses of fog. I could compare it to nothing but ghost-land; nothing is real except the danger!”
“Were you ever in such a fog as that, grandmamma?” asked George.
“Yes, George; once at sea we were overtaken by a most fearful and prolonged fog; never in my life did I experience such feelings of awe and alarm as during that weary week.
“But I must tell you of that another time. Your grandfather often used to recall his emotions when travelling in that thick cloud. One day they rested in the icy chamber they had dug for the night’s resting-place, and he said, ‘That was indeed an oratory;’ and fervently did we pray, ‘Give us our daily bread,’ and ‘Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, O Lord.’
“The tears dropped fast when he thought of my anxiety on his account, and of the probability that his usefulness was at an end, and that we should meet no more on earth.
“At length he came to the resolution to retrace his steps, hoping to make the scanty supply of biscuit which still remained hold out until they could regain the spot where the Indians had encamped, and where they had buried some venison. Of the three travellers, he suffered least from snow-blindness, which he thought was owing to the fact that he had kept a black gauze veil over his face at mid-day, and had resolutely adhered to his purpose of not rubbing his eyes. He was, therefore, best able to guide his companions. He thus describes the plan on which he proceeded:--‘Maurice, the Indian, would open his eyes now and then to look at my compass;--we could not see for fog more than one hundred yards; he would fix on some object as far as the eye could reach, and then shut his eyes again, when I would lead him up to it. On reaching it he would take another look, and we then started for the next point. It was literally a case of the blind leading the blind.