the first ship, allowing the second, or even third, to follow close astern, with very little obstruction. In this manner we had advanced about four miles to the westward by eight P.M., after eleven hours of very laborious exertion; and having then come to the end of the clear water, and the weather be ing again foggy, the ships were secured in a deep bight," or bay in a floe, called by the sailors à "natural dock.'

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Early on the morning of the 26th there was clear water as far as we could see to the westward, which, on account of the fog, did not exceed the distance of three hundred yards. We made sail, however, and having groped our way for about half a mile, found the ice once more close in every direction except that in which we had been sailing, obliging us to make the ships fast to a floe. At half past three P.M. the weather cleared up, and a few narrow lanes of water being seen to the westward, every exertion was immediately made to get into them. On beginning to heave, however, we found that the "hole" of water in which the Hecla lay was now so completely enclosed by ice that no passage out of it could be found. We tried every corner, but to no purpose; all the power we could apply being insufficient to move the heavy masses of ice which had fixed themselves firmly between us and the lanes of water without. In the mean time, Lieutenant Liddon had succeeded in advancing about three hundred yards, and had placed the Griper's bow between two heavy floes, which it was necessary to separate before any farther progress could be made. Both ships continued to heave at their hawsers occasionally, as VOL. I.-C

the ice appeared to slacken a little, by which means they were now and then drawn ahead a few inches at a time, but did not advance more than half a dozen yards in the course of the night. By our nearing several bergs to the northward, the ice appeared to be drifting in that direction, the wind being moderate from the southward.

About three A.M., Tuesday, 27th, by a sudden motion of the ice, we succeeded in getting the Hecla out of her confined situation, and ran her up astern of the Griper. The clear water had made so much to the westward, that a narrow neck of ice was all that was now interposed between the ships and a large open space in that quarter. Both ships' companies were therefore ordered upon the ice to saw off the neck, when the floes suddenly opened sufficiently to allow the Griper to push through under all sail. No time was lost in the attempt to get the Hecla through after her; but, by one of those accidents to which this navigation is liable, and which render it so precarious and uncertain, a piece of loose ice, which lay between the two ships, was drawn after the Griper by the eddy produced by her motion, and completely blocked the narrow passage through which we were about to follow. Before we could remove this obstruction by hauling it back out of the chan nel, the floes were again pressed together, wedging it firmly and immovably between them: the saws were immediately set to work, and used with great effect; but it was not till eleven o'clock that we succeeded, after seven hours' labour, in getting the Hecla into the lanes of clear water which opened more and more to the westward.

On the 29th we had so much clear water, that the ships had a very perceptible pitching motion, which, from the closeness of the ice, does not very often occur in the Polar regions, and which is therefore hailed with pleasure as an indication of an open sea. At five P.M. the swell increased considerably, and, as the wind freshened up from the northeast, the ice gradually disappeared; so that by six o'clock we were sailing in an open sea, perfectly free from obstruction of any kind.

We now seemed all at once to have got into the headquarters of the whales. They were so nu

merous that I directed the number to be counted during each watch, and no less than eighty-two are mentioned in this day's log. Mr. Allison, the Greenland master, considered them generally as large ones, and remarked that a fleet of whalers might easily have obtained a cargo here in a few days. In the afternoon the wind broke us off from the N.N.W., which obliged us to cast off the Griper, and we carried all sail ahead to make the land. We saw it at half past five P.M., being the high land about Possession Bay, and at the same time several streams of loose but heavy ice came in sight, which a fresh breeze was drifting fast to the southeastward.

The wind increased to a fresh breeze on the morning of the 31st, which prevented our making much way to the westward. We stood in towards Cape Byam Martin, and sounded in eighty fathoms on a rocky bottom, at the distance of two miles in an east direction from it. We soon after discovered the flagstaff which had been erected on Possession Mount on the former expedition; an object

which, though insignificant in itself, called up every person immediately on deck to look at and to greet it as an old acquaintance.

The land immediately at the back of Possession Bay rises in a gentle slope from the sea, present. ing an open and extensive space of low ground, flanked by hills to the north and south. In this valley, and even on the hills, to the height of six or seven hundred feet above the sea, there was scarcely any snow, but the mountains at the back were completely covered with it. Some pieces of birch-bark having been picked up in the bed of this stream in 1818, which gave reason to suppose that wood might be found growing in the interior, I directed Mr. Fisher to walk up it, accom. panied by a small party, and to occupy an hour or two while the Griper was coming up, and Captain Sabine and myself were employed upon the beach, in examining the nature and productions of the country.

Mr. Fisher reported, on his return, that he had followed the stream between three and four miles, where it turned to the southwest, without discover. ing any indications of a wooded country; but a sufficient explanation respecting the birch-bark was perhaps furnished by his finding, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from the sea, a piece of whalebone two feet ten inches in length and two inches in breadth, having a number of circular holes very neatly and regularly perforated along one of its edges, which had undoubtedly formed part of an Esquimaux sledge. This circumstance af fording a proof of the Esquimaux having visited this part of the coast at no very distant period, it

was concluded that the piece of bark above alluded to had been brought hither by these people. From the appearance of the whalebone, it might have been lying there for four or five years. That none

of the Esquimaux tribe had visited this part of the coast since we landed there in 1818, was evident from the flagstaff then erected still remaining untouched. Mr. Fisher found every part of the valley quite free from snow as high as he ascended it: and the following fact seems to render it probable that no great quantity either of snow or sleet had fallen here since our last visit. Mr. Fisher had not proceeded far, till, to his great surprise, he encountered the tracks of human feet upon the banks of the stream, which appeared so fresh that he at first imagined them to have been recently made by some natives, but which, on examination, were distinctly ascertained to be the marks of our own shoes, made eleven months before.

CHAPTER II.

Entrance into Sir James Lancaster's Sound of Baffin.-Uninterrupted Passage to the Westward.-Discovery and Examination of Prince Regent's Inlet.-Progress to the Southward stopped by Ice.-Return to the Northward.-Pass Barrow's Strait, and enter the Polar Sea.

We were now about to enter and to explore that great sound or inlet which has obtained a degree of celebrity beyond what it might otherwise have