Moreover, the barren ground was quite unsuited to the pitching of the southern type of tent, the poles of which obviously could not be driven into the bare rock, so that Hearne was obliged to sleep in the open air in all weathers.

Very often he was unable to make a fire, and was constantly reduced to eating his meat quite raw.

"Notwithstanding these accumulated and complicated hardships, we continued in perfect health and good spirits." The average day's walk was twenty miles, sometimes without any other subsistence than a pipe of tobacco and a drink of water.
At last they saw three musk oxen grazing by the side of a small lake.
This seemed a splendid piece of fortune, but, to their mortification, before they could get one of them skinned, a tremendous downpour of rain ensued, so as to make it out of their power to have a fire, for their only form of fuel was moss.

And the flesh of the musk ox eaten raw was disgusting; it was coarse and tough, and tasted so strongly of musk that Hearne could hardly swallow it.

"None of our natural wants," he writes, "except thirst, are so distressing or hard to endure as hunger....