May 29th. Thursday. We were bumping along towards the west when I came on deck, as the ice looked slacker in that direction, but we had to return shortly after breakfast and, after thrashing around for most of the morning, we managed to strike a good lead and gain a few miles. There was no shooting, as the ship did not stop.
The Cornwallis kept near us all day, and the Narwhal was not far away. As we were now on the edge of the notorious Melville Bay, it became interesting. Greely's famous thirty-six hour passage was not going to be repeated by us, that was evident. I recalled Cheynes' account of its dangers, but we were so comfortable on board the Aurora, and meals were served with such regularity, that it was only possible to realize the danger by watching floes crunch into each other as they were pressed together by irresistible forces. We hooked on at night with little in sight but floes and bergs.
It is a wonderful thing to see a berg ploughing its way through a frozen sea, slowly but surely, overcoming all obstacles, provided, always, that the water was deep enough to keep its mighty base from grounding. On this day there were dozens in sight. They were in every direction and one could easily understand the hopelessness of a sailing ship's position, beset in these waters, with a gale driving bergs down upon her.
May 30th. Friday. We were lying, hooked on to the floe, in the forenoon, when I looked over the side and saw a beautiful male King eider duck (S. Spectabilis) sitting on the water within ten feet of the Captain's port. The Captain was in bed, as he had been in the crow's nest for days, nearly all the time. His port was open and I did not want to wake him, so, taking a gun, I went on the ice and, firing from there, killed the bird without the report being heard in the cabin, and the dog, Jock, went out and brought the bird in. It was the first King eider I had shot and it looked beautiful in its spring plumage. The striking thing about the bird was the enormous frontal processes bulging high above the bill and brightly colored. These were soft and shrank rapidly as they dried, losing their color. The plumage was a mixture of black, white, pearl gray and sea green, making a gorgeous whole. The first bird one sees of a beautiful species always excites more admiration than the others, and so I was delighted with this and carefully skinned it.
The evening made no change in the conditions and we remained fast all night.
May 31st. Saturday. All the ships were stuck in the morning. The Cornwallis and Narwhal were some distance astern, the Arctic near the shore, the Nova Zembla and Polynia close together to the west of us. There were an immense number of bergs, some of them, no doubt, aground, as there were many islands and rocks. We were lying off Tassuisak, a not very populous place, and I was in hope that some natives, seeing the ships, would come off.
