Next day, the missionaries, accompanied by eleven Esquimaux, attempted
to reach the whale; but when they were about an hour's distance from
the house, they perceived from a mountain near where the whale lay,
that the ice was broken, and encountered such a violent storm of wind
and snow that they were forced to return; while the frost was so
intense, that often their mouth and nose were frozen to their skin
coats, so that they had to break the ice before they could breathe,
and their eyes were so closed that they had to force them open with
their fingers.

As hunger now began to torment the party, the brethren were exposed to
great anxiety, suffering, and danger, from the perpetual importunity
of the Esquimaux for provisions, which they had no means of supplying,
but which they supposed they were the means of their being deprived of
obtaining. An old man began to cry, "Torngak moves me to say that he
will tell us the cause of this storm, and the breaking of the ice,
and the loss of the whale." "Let us hear," said they. "O! the sinews!
O! the sinews!" replied he.

Rein-deer sinews are what, according to the superstition of the
country, dare not be brought near a whale. But the brethren that
morning had plaited some whale sinew, and fastened the haft of the ax
with which they intended to cut up the whale; and he, supposing that
they had been the sinews of the rein-deer, raised the cry. Being
informed of his mistake, he changed his tone and exclaimed, "O! the
rotten wood! O! the rotten wood!" Rotten wood is expressly forbid to
be burnt in the preparation of food, but Jans Haven had brought some
pieces in a sledge along with the rest of the fuel; the Esquimaux, to
whom the sledge belonged, had carefully picked it out and thrown it
away, and the conjurer was informed that in this also he was mistaken.