[B] I have followed my journal literally. I find, however, in my copy of the log-book, below the entry of the watch-officer which mentions this island, a note made by me at the time: “I can see no island, but simply this prolongation or tongue.”
“September 25, Wednesday. The wind has changed, so that our helpless drift is now again to the north. The day was comparatively free from snow; but not clear enough to give us an observation, or to exhibit the more distant coast-lines. We can see the western shore very plainly covered with snow, and stretching in rolling hills to the north and west. A little indentation, nearly opposite the day before yesterday, is now in nearly the same phase—if any thing, a little to the southward. We have therefore changed our position by drift not so much as on the preceding days. The winds, however, have been very light. Advance Bluff is now shut in by ‘Cape Rescue,’ the westernmost point yet discovered of Cornwallis Island. This shows that we are nearing the shore.
“Toward the north and a little to the west is a permanent dark cloud, a line of stratus with a cumulated thickening at the western end. This is the same during sunshine and snow-storm, night and day. It is thought by Captain De Haven to be indicative of open water. It may be that Cornwallis Island ends there, and that this is a continuation of the present channel trending to the westward. Or this dark appearance may be merely the highland clouds over the mountains seen on Sunday; but De Haven suggests that it is rather a vacant space, or water free from ice; the exemption being due to the island and adjacent western shore (not more than seven miles from it), acting as a barrier to the northern drift of the present channel."
I
AM reluctant to burden my pages with the wild, but scarcely varied incidents of our continued drift through Wellington Channel. We were yet to be familiarized with the strife of the ice-tables, now broken up into tumbling masses, and piling themselves in angry confusion against our sides—now fixed in chaotic disarray by the fields of new ice that imbedded them in a single night—again, perhaps, opening in treacherous pools, only to close round us with a force that threatened to grind our brigs to powder. I shall have occasion enough to speak of these things hereafter. I give now a few extracts from my journal; some of which may perhaps have interest of a different character, though they can not escape the saddening monotony of the scenes that were about us.
I begin with a partial break-up that occurred on the 23d.