Surprised at the condition of the ice in the bay, I determined to climb the hill above the camp, with the view of ascertaining the probable cause of our being thus baffled; and to ascertain if a more direct route could not be found further to the eastward than that by the land-ice of the bay; for it was now clear that it was only possible to continue our journey northward in one or the other of these directions. The labors of the day made it necessary, however, that I should procure some rest before attempting to climb the hill to such an elevation as would enable me to obtain a clear view of the condition of the ice to the opposite shore.
After a most profound and refreshing sleep, inspired by a weariness which I had rarely before experienced, to an equal degree, I climbed the steep hill-side to the top of a ragged cliff, which I supposed to be about eight hundred feet above the level of the sea.
The view which I had from this elevation furnished a solution of the cause of my progress being arrested on the previous day.
The ice was everywhere in the same condition as in the mouth of the bay, across which I had endeavored to pass. A broad crack, starting from the middle of the bay, stretched over the sea, and uniting with other cracks as it meandered to the eastward, it expanded as the delta of some mighty river discharging into the ocean, and under a water-sky, which hung upon the northern and eastern horizon, it was lost in the open sea.
Standing against the dark sky at the north, there was seen in dim outline the white sloping summit of a noble headland,—the most northern known land upon the globe. I judged it to be in latitude 82° 30´, or four hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. Nearer, another bold cape stood forth; and nearer still the headland, for which I had been steering my course the day before, rose majestically from the sea, as if pushing up into the very skies a lofty mountain peak, upon which the winter had dropped its diadem of snows. There was no land visible except the coast upon which I stood.
The sea beneath me was a mottled sheet of white and dark patches, these latter being either soft decaying ice or places where the ice had wholly disappeared. These spots were heightened in intensity of shade and multiplied in size as they receded, until the belt of the water-sky blended them all together into one uniform color of dark blue. The old and solid floes (some a quarter of a mile, and others miles, across) and the massive ridges and wastes of hummocked ice which lay piled between them and around their margins, were the only parts of the sea which retained the whiteness and solidity of winter.
I reserve to another chapter all discussion of the value of the observations which I made from this point. Suffice it here to say that all the evidences showed that I stood upon the shores of the Polar Basin, and that the broad ocean lay at my feet; that the land upon which I stood, culminating in the distant cape before me, was but a point of land projecting far into it, like the Ceverro Vostochnoi Noss of the opposite coast of Siberia; and that the little margin of ice which lined the shore was being steadily worn away; and within a month, the whole sea would be as free from ice as I had seen the north water of Baffin Bay,—interrupted only by a moving pack, drifting to and fro at the will of the winds and currents.
To proceed further north was, of course, impossible. The crack which I have mentioned would, of itself, have prevented us from making the opposite land, and the ice outside the bay was even more decayed than inside. Several open patches were observed near the shore, and in one of these there was seen a flock of Dovekie. At several points during our march up Kennedy Channel I had observed their breeding-places, but I was not a little surprised to see the birds at this locality so early in the season. Several burgomaster-gulls flew over head, making their way northward, seeking the open water for their feeding grounds and summer haunts. Around these haunts of the birds there is never ice after the early days of June.
THE JOURNEY ENDED.
And now my journey was ended, and I had nothing to do but make my way back to Port Foulke. The advancing season, the rapidity with which the thaw was taking place, the certainty that the open water was eating into Smith Sound as well through Baffin Bay from the south, as through Kennedy Channel from the north, thus endangering my return across to the Greenland shore, warned me that I had lingered long enough.