eleven A.M.
There really seemed to be a likelihood that the temperature was at last going to become what it ought to be at this time of the year in such an elevated latitude . The colonists might well regret that it was not now what it had been during the last cold season , when the column of mercury fell to 72 ° Fahrenheit below zero . Hobson determined no longer to delay leaving Victoria Island , and on the morning of the 22d the whole of the little colony was ready to leave the island , which was now firmly welded to the ice-field , and by its means connected with the American continent , six hundred miles away . At half-past eleven A.M. , Hobson gave the signal of departure . The sky was grey but clear , and lighted up from the horizon to the zenith by a magnificent Aurora Borealis . The dogs were harnessed to the sledges , and three couple of reindeer to the waggon sledges . Silently they wended their way towards Cape Michael , where they would quit the island , properly so called , for the ice-field .