AS the ships returned southward, they steamed through a large “polynia,” or water-space, in Kennedy Channel. It was on a still night, late in August, and the ice-locked sea was calm enough to be the veritable “Peace Pool.” A few last fragments of polar floe lay here and there in the water, strangely reflected, and a dovekie swam beside one of them. Far away to the east, between Franklin and Crozier Islands, Cape Constitution rose above a faint line of pack. It was Kane’s farthest point. From its base, Morton, looking on another such polynia, had naturally enough reported an open Polar Sea. The sea was open now as far southward as could be seen from the crow’s nest, and yet both ships were in difficulties before morning, and a hundred miles of Smith’s Sound pack still separated them from the North Water and from home.

Better fortune awaited the next effort, and on the morning of the 20th the ships fought slowly across Lady Franklin Strait. Cape Baird and Cape Leiber were passed in comparatively open water, then the ice became less and less, and as midnight approached we were astonished to find ourselves nearly sixty miles on the homeward journey, and still steaming full speed. The scene we passed through just at this time was one not easily forgotten. Under the cold yellow light of northern afterglow, Kennedy Channel lay open as far as we could see, a sheet of mirror-like water in that absolute calm peculiar to ice-locked seas. There was some low mist at the other side of the channel, probably floating over pack; through it we could distinguish the islands named after Franklin and Crozier, and between them rose Cape Constitution, the bold headland from which Morton had looked upon Kane’s open Polar Sea ([Plate No. 16]). As we stood on deck attempting to preserve some record of the tender tints of sea and sky in water-colour, a last fragment of heavy pack floated by, and the only dovekie we had seen for many a day swam beside it.

“Open water as far as the eye can reach” really means nothing more than that there are no ice-fields within three or four miles, and yet on that limited fact alone voyagers have more than once reported that they might have sailed to the Pole or near it. The open sea off Cape Constitution was a mere pool. Before morning both ships were arrested in dense pack, and forced to retreat for shelter to a narrow inlet with steep shelving sides. We were just moored to some pieces of grounded ice, and were congratulating ourselves on the security of our refuge, when a fragment of drifting floe caught against the “Alert” and pushed her on shore under a steep ice-foot at the very top of high tide. As the water fell, her bows were left high and dry on the beach, so that a man might have crept under the front of her keel, and she fell over so much on her side that a total capsize down the sloping beach seemed not impossible; but when the tide rose again she righted, and the whole crew, straining vigorously on the capstan, dragged her off from her perilous position.

From this point southward to the entrance of Smith’s Sound the return of the Expedition was one monotonous struggle with the ice. Day after day the ships pushed onward between the floes and the shore in whatever openings the changing tide made for them, sheltering behind every projection of the coast. In the far north there are very few, if any, true icebergs, but opposite the Humboldt Glacier we again encountered them, and often found a refuge from the pack amongst groups grounded near shore.

Our progress southward was a race against rapidly approaching winter. Snow fell in large quantities, and lay in thick paste on the water in cracks and pools. One by one the headlands passed on our northward voyage were rounded, and day by day new ice grew thicker and our stock of fuel dwindled. There several attempts were made to force a way past Cape Hawkes, and when we did succeed, the bay beyond was found full of new ice, so thick that the whole power of our engines could not push through. It cracked here and there before the ships, but soon brought both to a standstill, and the order was given to put out the fires.

The bay in which we thus found ourselves arrested was afterwards called after Professor Allman. It is an indent in the western coast-line of Kane’s Sea, immediately north of Hayes Sound. It is five miles wide, and at its head we could see a large glacier pouring in two streams round a snow-covered hill, and fronting the bay in a line of icy cliff. Snow lay deep on the mountains on either side, and it still snowed constantly; decks and rigging were covered; a more wintry prospect could hardly be conceived. It was already beginning to grow dark in the evenings, and lamps and candles were again in use between decks. But for a certain disappointment in being checked when we had made up our minds to return, few on board our ships were unwilling to face another winter. Here, two hundred miles further south, it would be a very different affair from the last. Release from the ice next season could be looked forward to as a certainty, and even with a stock of coal lessened by the exigencies of a second winter it would still be possible to escape from Smith’s Sound. If the ships could be got into shelter near the deserted Eskimo hunting-grounds of Norman Lockyer Island, we should probably get plenty of game. Almost all our invalids were again in good health, and when spring came the smooth floes would make the exploration of Hayes’ Sound a pleasure trip. Moreover, if a second winter was unavoidable, there was another reason—a somewhat ignoble one perhaps—why it would not be unwelcome. The advance of pay liberally granted by the Admiralty before sailing was not yet defrayed, and if we reached England this year almost all the men would still be in debt to the Crown, and sailors naturally prefer to land with a little money in their pockets.