Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Volume I Part 6

At one P.M. on the 5th, the weather continuing quite calm, and being desirous of examining the ice in-sh.o.r.e, that we might be ready for the floes closing upon us, I left the s.h.i.+p, accompanied by Captain Sabine and Mr. Edwards, and landed near one of the numerous deep and broad ravines with which the whole of this part of the island is indented. We were ascending the hill, which was found by trigonometrical measurement to be eight hundred and forty-seven feet above the level of the sea, and on which we found no mineral production but sandstone and clay iron-stone, when a breeze sprung up from the eastward, bringing up the Griper, which had been left several miles astern. We only stopped, therefore, to obtain observations for the longitude and the variation of the magnetic needle; the former of which was 112 53' 32", and the latter 110 56' 11" easterly, and then immediately returned on board and made all sail to the westward. After running for two hours without obstruction, we were once more mortified in perceiving that the ice, in very extensive and unusually heavy floes, closed in with the land a little to the westward of Cape Hay, and our channel of clear water between the ice and the land gradually diminished in breadth, till at length it became necessary to take in the studding sails, and to haul to the wind to look about us. I immediately left the s.h.i.+p, and went in a boat to examine the grounded ice off a small point of land, such as always occurs on this coast at the outlet of each ravine. I found that this point offered the only possible shelter which could be obtained in case of the ice coming in; and I therefore determined to take the Hecla in-sh.o.r.e immediately, and to pick out the best berth which circ.u.mstances would admit. As I was returning on board with this intention, I found that the ice was already rapidly approaching the sh.o.r.e; no time was to be lost, therefore, in getting the Hecla to her intended station, which was effected by half past eight P.M., being in nine to seven fathoms water, at the distance of twenty yards from the beach, which was lined all round the point with very heavy ma.s.ses of ice that had been forced by some tremendous pressure into the ground. Our situation was a dangerous one, having no shelter from ice coming from the westward, the whole of which, being distant from us less than half a mile, was composed of floes infinitely more heavy than any we had elsewhere met with during the voyage. The Griper was three or four miles astern of us at the time when the ice began to close, and I therefore directed Lieutenant Liddon, by signal, to secure his s.h.i.+p in the best manner he could, without attempting to join the Hecla; he accordingly made her fast at eleven P.M., near a point like that at which we were lying, and two or three miles to the eastward.

On the whole of this steep coast, wherever we approached the sh.o.r.e, we found a thick stratum of blue and solid ice, firmly imbedded in the beach, at the depth of from six to ten feet under the surface of the water. This ice has probably been the lower part of heavy ma.s.ses forced aground by the pressure of the floes from without, and still adhering to the viscous mud of which the beach is composed, after the upper part has, in course of time, dissolved. From the tops of the hills in this part of Melville Island a continuous line of this submarine ice could be distinctly traced for miles along the coast.

In running along the sh.o.r.e this evening we had noticed near the sea what at a distance had every appearance of a high wall artificially built, which was the resort of numerous birds.

Captain Sabine being desirous to examine it, as well as to procure some specimens of the birds, set out, as soon as we anch.o.r.ed, for that purpose. The wall proved to be composed of sandstone in horizontal strata, from twenty to thirty feet in height, which had been left standing, so as to exhibit its present artificial appearance, by the decomposition of the rock and earth about it.

Large flocks of glaucous gulls had chosen this as a secure retreat from the foxes, and every other enemy but man; and when our people first went into the ravine in which it stands, they were so fierce in defence of their young that it was scarcely safe to approach them till a few shots had been fired.

On the morning of the 7th a black whale came up close to the Hecla, being the first we had seen since the 22d of August the preceding year, about the longitude of 91 W.; it therefore acquired among us the distinctive appellation of _the_ whale.

Since leaving Winter Harbour we had also, on two or three occasions, seen a solitary seal. The wind continued fresh from the east and E.N.E. in the morning, and the loose ice came close in upon us, but the main body remained stationary at the distance of nearly half a mile.

In the afternoon a man from each mess was sent on sh.o.r.e to pick sorrel, which was here remarkably fine and large, as well as more acid than any we had lately met with. The shelter from the northerly winds afforded by the high land on this part of the coast, together with its southern aspect, renders the vegetation here immediately next the sea much more luxuriant than in most parts of Melville Island which we visited, and a considerable addition was made to our collection of plants.

The easterly breeze died away in the course of the day, and at three P.M. was succeeded by a light air from the opposite quarter; and as this freshened up a little, the loose ice began to drift into our bight, and that on the eastern side of the point to drive off. It became expedient, therefore, immediately to s.h.i.+ft the s.h.i.+p round the point, where she was made fast in four fathoms abaft and seventeen feet forward, close alongside the usual ledge of submarine ice, which touched her about seven feet under water, and which, having few of the heavy ma.s.ses aground upon it, would probably have allowed her to be pushed over it had a heavy pressure occurred from without. It was the more necessary to moor the s.h.i.+p in some such situation, as we found from six to seven fathoms water by dropping the hand-lead down close to her bow and quarter on the outer side.

Several heavy pieces of floes drove close past us, not less than ten or fifteen feet in thickness, but they were fortunately stopped by a point of land without coming in upon us. At eleven o'clock, however, a ma.s.s of this kind, being about half an acre in extent, drove in, and gave the s.h.i.+p a considerable "nip" between it and the land ice, and then grazed past her to the westward. I now directed the rudder to be unhung, and the s.h.i.+p to be swung with her head to the eastward, so that the bow, being the strongest part, might receive the first and heaviest pressure.

The ice did not disturb us again till five A.M. on the 8th, when another floe-piece came in and gave the s.h.i.+p a heavy rub, and then went past, after which it continued slack about us for several hours. Everything was so quiet at nine o'clock as to induce me to venture up the hill abreast of us, in order to have a view of the newly-discovered land to the southwest, which, indeed, I had seen indistinctly and much refracted from the Hecla's deck in the morning. This land, which extends beyond the 117th degree of west longitude, and is the most western yet discovered in the Polar Sea to the northward of the American Continent, was honoured with the name of BANKS'S LAND, out of respect to the late venerable and worthy president of the Royal Society.

On the morning of the 9th a musk-ox came down to graze on the beach near the s.h.i.+ps. A party was despatched in pursuit, and, having hemmed him in under the hill, which was too steep for him to ascend, succeeded in killing him. When first brought on board, the inside of this animal, which was a male, smelled very strong of musk, of which the whole of the meat also tasted more or less, and especially the heart. It furnished us with four hundred and twenty-one pounds of beef, which was served to the crews as usual, in lieu of their salt provisions, and was very much relished by us, notwithstanding the peculiarity of its flavour.[*] The meat was remarkably fat, and, as it hung up in quarters, looked as fine as any beef in an English market. A small seal, killed by the Griper's people, was also eaten by them; and it was generally allowed to be very tender and palatable, though not very sightly in its appearance, being of a disagreeable red colour.

[Footnote: Some pieces of this meat which we brought to England were found to have acquired a much more disagreeable flavour than when first killed, though they had not undergone putrefaction in the slightest degree.]

At ten P.M. the whole body of ice, which was then a quarter of a mile from us, was found to be drifting in upon the land, and the s.h.i.+p was warped back a little way to the westward, towards that part of the sh.o.r.e which was most favourable for allowing her to be forced up on the beach. At eleven o'clock, the piece of a floe which came near us in the afternoon, and which had since drifted back a few hundred yards to the eastward, received the pressure of the whole body of ice as it came in. It split across in various directions with a considerable crash, and presently after we saw a part, several hundred tons in weight, raised slowly and majestically, as if by the application of a screw, and deposited on another part of the floe from which it had broken, presenting towards us the surface that had split, which was of a fine blue colour, and very solid and transparent. The violence with which the ice was coming in being thus broken, it remained quiet during the night, which was calm, with a heavy fall of snow.

The ma.s.s of ice which had been lifted up the preceding day being drifted close to us on the morning of the 10th, I sent Lieutenant Beechey to measure its thickness, which proved to be forty-two feet; and as it was a piece of a regular floe, this measurement may serve to give some idea of the general thickness of the ice in this neighbourhood.

I began to consider whether it would not be advisable, whenever the ice would allow us to move, to sacrifice a few miles of the westing we had already made, and to run along the margin of the floes, in order to endeavour to find an opening leading to the southward, by taking advantage of which we might be enabled to prosecute the voyage to the westward in a lower lat.i.tude. I was the more inclined to make this attempt, from its having long become evident to us that the navigation of this part of the Polar Sea is only to be performed by watching the occasional openings between the ice and the sh.o.r.e; and that, therefore, a continuity of land is essential, if not absolutely necessary, for this purpose. Such a continuity of land, which was here about to fail us, must necessarily be furnished by the northern coast of America, in whatsoever lat.i.tude it may be found; and, as a large portion of our short season had already been occupied in fruitless attempts to penetrate farther to the westward in our present parallel, under circ.u.mstances of more than ordinary risk to the s.h.i.+ps, I determined, whenever the ice should open sufficiently, to put into execution the plan I had proposed.

At seven P.M. we s.h.i.+pped the rudder and crossed the top-gallant yards in readiness for moving; and then I ascended the hill and walked a mile to the westward, along the brow of it, that not a moment might be lost after the ice to the westward should give us the slightest hope of making any progress by getting under way.

Although the holes had certainly increased in size and extent, there was still not sufficient room even for one of our boats to work to windward; and the impossibility of the s.h.i.+ps' doing so was rendered more apparent, on account of the current which, as I have before had occasion to remark, is always produced in these seas soon after the springing up of a breeze, and which was now running to the eastward at the rate of at least one mile per hour. It was evident that any attempt to get the s.h.i.+ps to the westward must, under circ.u.mstances so unfavourable, be attended with the certain consequence of their being drifted the contrary way; and nothing could therefore be done but still to watch, which we did most anxiously, every alteration in the state of the ice. The wind, however, decreasing as the night came on, served to diminish the hopes with which we had flattered ourselves of being speedily extricated from our present confined and dangerous situation.

The weather was foggy for some hours in the morning of the 11th, but cleared up in the afternoon as the sun acquired power. The wind increased to a fresh gale from the eastward at nine P.M., being the second time that it had done so while we had been lying at this station; a circ.u.mstance which we were the more inclined to notice, as the easterly winds had hitherto been more faint and less frequent than those from the westward. In this respect, therefore, we considered ourselves unfortunate, as experience had already shown us that none but a westerly wind ever produced upon this coast, or, indeed, on the southern coast of any of the North Georgian Islands, the desired effect of clearing the sh.o.r.es of ice.

The gale continued strong during the night, and the ice quite stationary. Not a pool of clear water could be seen in any direction, except just under the lee of our point, where there was a s.p.a.ce large enough to contain half a dozen sail of s.h.i.+ps, till about noon, when the whole closed in upon us without any apparent cause, except that the wind blew in irregular puffs about that time, and at one P.M. it was alongside. The s.h.i.+p was placed in the most advantageous manner for taking the beach, or, rather, the shelf of submarine ice, and the rudder again uns.h.i.+pped and hung across the stem. The ice which came in contact with the s.h.i.+p's side consisted of very heavy loose pieces, drawing twelve or fourteen feet water, which, however, we considered as good "fenders," compared with the enormous fields which covered the sea just without them. Everything remained quiet for the rest of the day, without producing any pressure of consequence; the wind came round to N.b.E. at night, but without moving the ice off the land.

Early in the morning of the 13th I received by Mr. Griffiths a message from Lieutenant Liddon, acquainting me that, at eleven o'clock on the preceding night, the ice had been setting slowly to the westward, and had, at the same time, closed in upon the land where the Griper was lying, by which means she was forced against the submarine ice, and her stern lifted two feet out of the water.

This pressure, Lieutenant Liddon remarked, had given her a twist, which made her crack a good deal, but apparently without suffering any material injury in her hull, though the ice was still pressing upon her when Mr. Griffiths came away. She had at first heeled inward, but, on being lifted higher, fell over towards the deep water. Under these circ.u.mstances Lieutenant Liddon had very properly landed all the journals and other doc.u.ments of importance, and made every arrangement in his power for saving the provisions and stores in case of s.h.i.+pwreck, which he had now every reason to antic.i.p.ate. Convinced as I was that no human art or power could, in our present situation, prevent such a catastrophe whenever the pressure of the ice became sufficient, I was more than ever satisfied with the determination to which I had previously come, of keeping the s.h.i.+ps apart during the continuance of these untoward circ.u.mstances, in order to increase the chance of saving one of them from accidents of this nature. In the mean time the ice remained so close about the Hecla, that the slightest pressure producing in it a motion towards the sh.o.r.e must have placed us in a situation similar to that of the Griper; and our attention was therefore diverted to the more important object of providing, by every means in our power, for the security of the larger s.h.i.+p, as being the princ.i.p.al depot of provisions and other resources.

At five P.M. Lieutenant Liddon acquainted me by letter that the Griper had at length righted, the ice having slackened a little around her, and that all the damage she appeared to have sustained was in her rudder, which was badly split, and would require some hours' labour to repair it whenever the ice should allow him to get it on sh.o.r.e.

Soon after midnight the ice pressed closer in upon the Hecla than before, giving her a heel of eighteen inches towards the sh.o.r.e, but without appearing to strain her in the slightest degree. By four P.M. the pressure had gradually decreased, and the s.h.i.+p had only three or four inches heel; in an hour after she had perfectly righted, and the ice remained quiet for the rest of the day.

Every moment's additional detention now served to confirm me in the opinion I had formed as to the expediency of trying, at all risks, to penetrate to the southward whenever the ice would allow us to move at all, rather than persevere any longer in the attempts we had been lately making, with so little success, to push on directly to the westward. I therefore gave Lieutenant Liddon an order to run back a certain distance to the eastward whenever he could do so, without waiting for the Hecla, should that s.h.i.+p be still detained; and to look out for any opening in the ice to the southward which might seem likely to favour the object I had in view, waiting for me to join him should any such opening occur.

The breeze died away in the course of the night, just as the ice was beginning to separate and to drift away from the sh.o.r.e; and, being succeeded by a wind off the land, which is here very unusual, Lieutenant Liddon was enabled to sail upon the Griper at two A.M. on the 15th, in execution of the orders I had given him.

As I soon perceived, however, that she made little or no way, the wind drawing more to the eastward on that part of the coast, and as the clear water was increasing along the sh.o.r.e to the westward much farther than we had yet seen it, I made the signal of recall to the Griper, with the intention of making another attempt, which the present favourable appearances seemed to justify, to push forward without delay in the desired direction. At five A.M., therefore, as soon as the snow had cleared away sufficiently to allow the signal to be distinguished, we cast off and ran along sh.o.r.e, the wind having by this time veered to the E.b.N., and blowing in strong puffs out of the ravines as we pa.s.sed them. We sailed along, generally at the distance of a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the beach, our soundings being from ten to seventeen fathoms; and, after running a mile and a half in a N.W.b.W. direction, once more found the ice offering an impenetrable obstacle to our progress westward, at a small projecting point of land just beyond us. We therefore hauled the s.h.i.+p into a berth which we were at this moment fortunate in finding abreast of us, and where we were enabled to place the Hecla within a number of heavy ma.s.ses of grounded ice, such as do not often occur on this steep coast, which, compared with the situation we had lately left, appeared a perfect harbour. In the mean time, the wind had failed our consort when she was a mile and a half short of this place; and Lieutenant Liddon, after endeavouring in vain to warp up to us, was obliged, by the ice suddenly closing upon him, to place her in-sh.o.r.e, in the first situation he could find, which proved to be in very deep water, as well as otherwise so insecure as not to admit a hope of saving the s.h.i.+p should the ice continue to press upon her.

Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls, a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several days.

A fog, which had prevailed during the night, cleared away in the morning of the 16th, and a very fine day succeeded, with a moderate breeze from the westward. In order to have a clear and distinct view of the state of the ice, after twenty-four hours'

wind from that quarter, Captain Sabine, Mr. Edwards, and myself, walked about two miles to the westward, along the high part of the land next the sea, from whence it appeared but too evident that no pa.s.sage in this direction was yet to be expected. The ice to the west and southwest was as solid and compact, to all appearance, as so much land; to which, indeed, the surface of so many fields, from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavoured to describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. I have no doubt that, had it been our object to circ.u.mnavigate Melville Island, or, on the other hand, had the coast continued its westerly direction instead of turning to the northward, we should still have contrived to proceed a little occasionally, as opportunities offered, notwithstanding the increased obstruction which here presented itself; but, as neither of these was the case, there seemed little or nothing to hope for from any farther attempts to prosecute the main object of the voyage in this place. I determined, therefore, no longer to delay the execution of my former intentions, and to make trial, if possible, of a more southern lat.i.tude, in which I might follow up the success that had hitherto attended our exertions.

The station at which the s.h.i.+ps were now lying, and which is the westernmost point to which the navigation of the Polar Sea to the northward of the American Continent has yet been carried, is in lat.i.tude 74 26' 25", and longitude, by chronometer, 113 46'

43.5".

The place where the Hecla was now secured, being the only one of the kind which could be found, was a little harbour, formed, as usual, by the grounded ice, some of which was fixed to the bottom in ten to twelve fathoms. One side of the entrance to this harbour consisted of ma.s.ses of floes, very regular in their shape, placed quite horizontally, and broken off so exactly perpendicular as to resemble a handsome, well-built wharf. On the opposite side, however, the ma.s.ses to which we looked for security were themselves rather terrific objects, as they leaned over so much towards the s.h.i.+p as to give the appearance of their being in the act of falling upon her deck; and as a very trifling concussion often produces the fall of much heavier ma.s.ses of ice, when in appearance very firmly fixed to the ground, I gave orders that no guns should be fired near the s.h.i.+p during her continuance in this situation. The Griper was of necessity made fast near the beach in rather an exposed situation, and her rudder uns.h.i.+pped, in readiness for the ice coming in; it remained quiet, however, though quite close, during the day, the weather being calm and fine.

It was again nearly calm on the 19th, and the weather was foggy for some hours in the morning. In the evening, having walked to Cape Providence to see if there was any possibility of moving the s.h.i.+ps, I found the ice so close that a boat could not have pa.s.sed beyond the Cape; but a light air drifting the ice slowly to the eastward at this time, gave me some hopes of soon being enabled to make our escape from this tedious as well as vexatious confinement. At a quarter past eight it was high water by the sh.o.r.e; about this time the ice ceased driving to the eastward, and shortly after returned in the opposite direction.

At half past eleven P.M., some heavy pieces of the grounded ice, to which our bow-hawser was secured, fell off into the water, snapping the rope in two without injuring the s.h.i.+p. As, however, every alteration of this kind must materially change the centre of gravity of the whole ma.s.s, which already appeared in a tottering state, I thought it prudent to move the Hecla out of her harbour to the place where the Griper was lying, considering that a s.h.i.+p might easily be forced on sh.o.r.e by the ice without suffering any serious damage; but that one of those enormous ma.s.ses falling upon her deck must inevitably crush or sink her.

The "young ice" had increased to the thickness of an inch and a half on the morning of the 23d, and some snow which had fallen in the night served to cement the whole more firmly together. On a breeze springing up from the westward, however, it soon began to acquire a motion to leeward, and at half an hour before noon had slackened about the s.h.i.+ps sufficiently to allow us to warp them out, which was accordingly done, and all sail made upon them. The wind having freshened up from the W.N.W., the s.h.i.+ps' heads were got the right way, and, by great attention to the sails, kept so till they had got abreast of Cape Providence, after which they were no longer manageable, the ice being more close than before. I have before remarked that the loose ice in this neighbourhood was heavy in proportion to the floes from which it had been broken; and the impossibility of sailing among such ice, most of which drew more water than the Hecla, and could not, therefore, be turned by her weight, was this day rendered very apparent, the s.h.i.+ps having received by far the heaviest shocks which they experienced during the voyage. They continued, however, to drive till they were about three miles to the eastward of Cape Providence, where the low land commences; when, finding that there was not any appearance of open water to the eastward or southward, and that we were now incurring the risk of being beset at sea, without a chance of making any farther progress, we hauled in for the largest piece of grounded ice we could see upon the beach, which we reached at six P.M., having performed six miles of the most difficult navigation I have ever known among ice. The Hecla was made fast in from eighteen to twenty feet water close to the beach, and the Griper in four fathoms, about half a mile to the westward of us.

The situation in which the s.h.i.+ps were now placed, when viewed in combination with the shortness of the remaining part of the season, and the period to which our resources of every kind could be extended, was such as to require a more than ordinary consideration, in order to determine upon the measures most proper to be pursued for the advancement of the public service, and the security of the s.h.i.+ps and people committed to my charge. Judging from the close of the summer of 1819, it was reasonable to consider the 7th of September as the limit beyond which the navigation of this part of the Polar Sea could not be performed, with tolerable safety to the s.h.i.+ps or with any hope of farther success. Impressed, however, with a strong sense of the efforts which it became us to make in the prosecution of our enterprise, I was induced to extend this limit to the 14th of September, before which day, on the preceding year, the winter might fairly be said to have set in. But even with this extension our prospect was not very encouraging: the direct distance to Icy Cape was between eight and nine hundred miles, while that which we had advanced towards it this season fell short of sixty miles.

By Mr. Hooper's report of the remains of provisions, it appeared that, at the present reduced allowance (namely, two thirds of the established proportion of the navy), they would last until the 30th of November, 1821; and that an immediate reduction, to half allowance, which must, however, tend materially to impair the health and vigour of the officers and men, would only extend our resources to the 30th of April, 1822; it therefore became a matter of evident and imperious necessity, that the s.h.i.+ps should be cleared from the ice before the close of the season of 1821, so as to reach some station where supplies might be obtained by the end of that, or early in the following year.

By the same report, it appeared that the fuel with which we were furnished could only be made to extend to a period of two years and seven months, or to the end of November, 1821; and this only by resorting to the unhealthy measure of both crews living on board the Hecla during six of the ensuing winter months.

The s.h.i.+ps might be considered almost as effective as when the expedition left England; the wear and tear having been trifling, and the quant.i.ty of stores remaining on board being amply sufficient, in all probability, for a much longer period than the provisions and fuel. The health of the officers and men continued also as good, or nearly so, as at the commencement of the voyage.

Considering, however, the serious loss we had sustained in the lemon-juice, the only effectual antis...o...b..tic on which we could depend during at least nine months of the year in these regions, as well as the effects likely to result from crowding nearly one hundred persons into the accommodation intended only for fifty-eight, whereby the difficulty of keeping the inhabited parts of the s.h.i.+p in a dry and wholesome state would have been so much increased, there certainly seemed some reason to apprehend that a second winter would not leave us in possession of the same excellent health which we now happily enjoyed, while it is possible that the difficulty and danger of either proceeding or returning might have been increased.

A herd of musk-oxen being seen at a little distance from the s.h.i.+ps, a party was despatched in pursuit; and Messrs. Fisher and Bushnan were fortunate in killing a fine bull, which separated from the rest of the herd, being too unwieldy to make such good way as the others. He was, however, by no means caught by our people in fair chase; for, though these animals run with a hobbling sort of canter, that makes them appear as if every now and then about to fall, yet the slowest of them can far outstrip a man. In this herd were two calves, much whiter than the rest, the older ones having only the white saddle. In the evening, Sergeant Martin succeeded in killing another bull; these two animals afforded a very welcome supply of fresh meat, the first giving us three hundred and sixty-nine, and the other three hundred and fifty-two pounds of beef, which was served in the same manner as before.[*]

[Footnote: The total quant.i.ty of game obtained for the use of the expedition during our stay upon the sh.o.r.es of Melville Island, being a period of nearly twelve months, was as follows: 3 musk oxen, 24 deer, 68 hares, 53 geese, 59 ducks, 144 ptarmigans: affording 3766 pounds of meat.]

It was gratifying to me to find that the officers unanimously agreed with me in opinion that any farther attempt to penetrate to the westward in our present parallel would be altogether fruitless, and attended with a considerable loss of time, which might be more usefully employed. They also agreed with me in thinking that the plan which I had adopted, of running back along the edge of the ice to the eastward, in order to look out for an opening that might lead us towards the American Continent, was in every respect the most advisable; and that, in the event of failing to find any such opening after a reasonable time spent in search, it would be expedient to return to England rather than risk the pa.s.sing another winter in these seas, without the prospect of attaining any adequate object; namely, that of being able to start from an advanced station at the commencement of the following season.

At three P.M. we were abreast of Cape Hearne; and, as we opened the bay of the Hecla and Griper, the wind, as usual on this part of the coast, came directly out from the northward; but, as soon as we had stretched over to Bounty Cape, of which we were abreast at eight P.M., it drew once more along the land from the westward.

The distance between the ice and the land increased as we proceeded, and at midnight the channel appeared to be four or five miles wide, as far as the darkness of the night would allow of our judging; for we could at this period scarcely see to read in the cabin at ten o'clock. The snow which fell during the day was observed, for the first time, to remain upon the land without dissolving; thus affording a proof of the temperature of the earth's surface having again fallen below that of freezing, and giving notice of the near approach of another long and dreary winter.

At seven P.M., a fog coming on, we hauled up close to the edge of the ice, both as a guide to us in sailing during the continuance of the thick weather, and to avoid pa.s.sing any opening that might occur in it to the southward. We were, in the course of the evening, within four or five miles of the same spot where we had been on the same day and at the same hour the preceding year; and, by a coincidence perhaps still more remarkable, we were here once more reduced to the same necessity as before, of steering the s.h.i.+ps by one another for an hour or two; the Griper keeping the Hecla ahead, and our quartermaster being directed to keep the Griper right astern, for want of some better mode of knowing in what direction we were running. The fog froze hard as it fell upon the rigging, making it difficult to handle the ropes in working the s.h.i.+p, and the night was rather dark for three or four hours.

At a quarter past three on the morning of the 30th, we bore up to the eastward, the wind continuing fresh directly down Barrow's Strait, except just after pa.s.sing Prince Leopold's Islands, where it drew into Prince Regent's Inlet, and, as soon as we had pa.s.sed this, again a.s.sumed its former westerly direction; affording a remarkable instance of the manner in which the wind is acted upon by the particular position of the land, even at a considerable distance from it. The islands were enc.u.mbered with ice to the distance of four or five miles all found them, but the Strait was generally as clear and navigable as any part of the Atlantic.

Having now traced the ice the whole way from the longitude of 114 to that of 90, without discovering any opening to encourage a hope of penetrating it to the southward, I could not entertain the slightest doubt that there no longer remained a possibility of effecting our object with the present resources of the expedition; and that it was therefore my duty to return to England with the account of our late proceedings, that no time might be lost in following up the success with which we had been favoured, should his majesty's government consider it expedient to do so. Having informed the officers and men in both s.h.i.+ps of my intentions, I directed the full allowance of provisions to be in future issued, with such a proportion of fuel as might contribute to their comfort; a luxury which, on account of the necessity that existed for the strictest economy in this article, it must be confessed, we had not often enjoyed since we entered Sir James Lancaster's Sound. We had been on two thirds allowance of bread between ten and eleven months, and on the same reduced proportion of the other species of provisions between three and four; and, although this quant.i.ty is scarcely enough for working men for any length of time, I believe the reduction of fuel was generally considered by far the greater privation of the two.

As it appeared to me that considerable service might be rendered by a general survey of the western coast of Baffin's Bay, which, from Sir James Lancaster's Sound southward, might one day become an important station for our whalers, I determined to keep as close to that sh.o.r.e during our pa.s.sage down as the ice and the wind would permit; and as the experience of the former voyage had led us to suppose that this coast would be almost clear of ice during the whole of September, I thought that this month could not be better employed than in the examination of its numerous bays and inlets. Such an examination appeared to me more desirable, from the hope of finding some new outlet into the Polar Sea in a lower lat.i.tude than that of Sir James Lancaster's Sound; a discovery which would be of infinite importance towards the accomplishment of the Northwest Pa.s.sage.

CHAPTER XI.

Progress down the Western Coast of Baffin's Bay.--Meet with the Whalers.--Account of some Esquimaux in the Inlet called the River Clyde.--Continue the Survey of the Coast till stopped by Ice in the Lat.i.tude of 68.--Obliged to run to the Eastward.--Fruitless Attempts to regain the Land, and final Departure from the Ice.--Remarks upon the probable Existence and Practicability of a Northwest Pa.s.sage, and upon the Whale Fishery.--Boisterous Weather in Crossing the Atlantic.--Loss of the Hecla's Bowsprit and Foremast.--Arrival in England.

The wind continuing fresh from the northward on the morning of the 1st of September, we bore up and ran along the land, taking our departure from the flagstaff in Possession Bay, bearing W.S.W.