However, the patients improved enough to enable the party to make a last expedition to Banner Cove to recover more of the provisions buried there, and to paint notices upon the rocks to guide the hoped-for relief to Spaniards' Harbour; but this was not effected without much molestation from the Fuegians.

Then passed six weary months of patient expectation and hope deferred.

There was no murmuring, no insubordination, while these seven men waited--waited--waited in vain, through the dismal Antarctic winter for the relief that came too late.

The journals of Williams and Gardiner breathe nothing but hopeful, resigned trust, and comfort in the heavenly-minded resolution of each of the devoted band, who may almost be said to have been the Theban legion of the nineteenth century.
For a month they were able to procure fish, and were not put on short allowance till April, when Williams and Badcock both became worse, and Bryant began to fail, though he never took to his bed.

They, with Erwin, were lodged in the _Speedwell_ at Blomfield Harbour, a sheltered inlet, about a mile and a half from the wreck of the _Pioneer_, where, to leave the sick more room, Captain Gardiner lodged with Maidment and Pearce.
With the months whose names spoke of English summer, storms and terrible cold began to set in.