At ten A.M. on the 14th, the weather being fine, we launched our three boats and left Walden Island; but the wind backing more to the westward, we could only fetch into a bay on the opposite or southern shore, where we hauled the boats up on very rugged rocks, under cliffs about six hundred feet high, and of the same granite formation as Walden Island.
The wind dying away on the morning of the 17th, we once more set out for the ship at nine A.M.; but having a second time nearly reached Shoal Point, were again met by a strong breeze as we opened Waygatz Strait, and were therefore obliged to land upon the low shore to the southward of Low Island.
On the 18th of August the wind increased to a strong breeze from the S.W., with rain and sleet, which afterward changed to snow in some of the largest flakes I ever saw, completely changing the whole aspect of the land from summer to winter in a few hours. On the following morning we prepared to move at an early hour, but the wind backed more to the westward, and soon after increased to a gale, raising so much surf on the beach as to oblige us to haul the boats higher up. On the 20th, tired as we were of this tedious confinement, and anxious to reach the ship, the wind and sea were still too high to allow us to move, and it was not till half past seven A.M. on the following day that we could venture to launch the boats. Having now, by means of the driftwood, converted our paddles into oars, and being occasionally favoured by a light breeze, with a perfectly open sea, we made tolerable progress, and at half past four P.M. on the 21st of August, when within three or four miles of Hecla Cove, had the gratification of seeing a boat under sail coming out to meet us. Mr. Weir soon joined us in one of the cutters; and, after hearing good accounts of the safety of the ship, and of the welfare of all on board, together with a variety of details, to us of no small interest, we arrived on board at seven P.M., after an absence of sixty-one days, being received with that warm and cordial welcome which can alone be felt, and not described.
I cannot conclude the account of our proceedings without endeavouring to do justice to the cheerful alacrity and unwearied zeal displayed by my companions, both officers and men, in the course of this excursion; and if steady perseverance and active exertion on their parts could have accomplished our object, success would undoubtedly have crowned our labours. I must also mention, to the credit of the officers of Woolwich dock-yard, who took so much pains in the construction of our boats, that, notwithstanding the constant and severe trial to which their strength had been put—and a more severe trial could not well be devised—not a timber was sprung, a plank split, or the smallest injury sustained by them; they were, indeed, as tight and as fit for service when we reached the ship as when they were first received on board, and in every respect answered the intended purpose admirably.
On my arrival on board, I learned from Lieutenant Crozier that Lieutenant Foster, finding that no farther disturbance from ice was to be apprehended, and after making an accurate plan of the bay and its neighbourhood, had proceeded on the survey of Waygatz Strait, and proposed returning by the 26th of August, the day to which I had limited his absence. I found the ship quite ready for sea, with the exception of getting on board the launch, with the stores deposited by my direction on the beach. Lieutenant Foster's report informed me that, after the ship had been hauled off the ground, they had again suffered considerable disturbance for several days, in consequence of some heavy masses of ice driving into the bay, which dragged the anchors, and again threatened them with a similar accident. However, after the middle of July, no ice had entered the bay, and, what is still more remarkable, not a piece had been seen in the offing for some weeks past, even after hard northerly and westerly gales.
On the 22d of August, as soon as our people had enjoyed a good night's rest, we commenced bringing the stores on board from the beach, throwing out such a quantity of the stone ballast as was necessary for trimming the ship; after which the cables and hawsers were cast off from the shore, and the ship hauled off to single anchor. Lieutenant Foster returned on board on the 24th, having surveyed the greater part of the shores of the strait, as far to the southward as 79° 33".
Lieutenant Foster saw some seahorses (narwhals) and white whales in the course of this excursion, but no black whales; nor did we, in the whole course of the voyage, see any of these, except on the ground already frequented by our whalers on the western coast of Spitzbergen. It is remarkable, however, that the "crown-bones," and other parts of the skeleton of whales, are found in most parts where we landed on this coast. The shores of the strait, like all the rest in Spitzbergen, are lined with immense quantities of driftwood, wherever the nature of the coast will allow it to land.
The animals met with here during the Hecla's stay were principally reindeer, bears, foxes, kittiwakes, glaucus and ivory gulls, tern, eider-ducks, and a few grouse. Looms and rotges were numerous in the offing. Seventy reindeer were killed, chiefly very small, and, until the middle of August, not in good condition. They were usually met with in herds of from six or eight to twenty, and were most abundant on the west and north sides of the bay. Three bears were killed, one of which was somewhat above the ordinary dimensions, measuring eight feet four inches from the snout to the insertion of the tail. The vegetation was tolerably abundant, especially on the western side of the bay, where the soil is good; a considerable collection of plants, as well as minerals, was made by Mr. Halse, and of birds by Mr. M'Cormick.
The neighbourhood of this bay, like most of the northern shores of Spitzbergen, appears to have been much visited by the Dutch at a very early period; of which circumstance records are furnished on almost every spot where we landed, by the numerous graves which we met with. There are thirty of these on a point of land on the north side of the bay.[[023]] The bodies are usually deposited in an oblong wooden coffin, which, on account of the difficulty of digging the ground, is not buried, but merely covered by large stones; and a board is generally placed near the head, having, either cut or painted upon it, the name of the deceased, with those of his ship and commander, and the month and year of his burial. Several of these were fifty or sixty years old; one bore the date of 1738; and another, which I found on the beach to the eastward of Hecla Cove, that of 1690; the inscription distinctly appearing in prominent relief, occasioned by the preservation of the wood by the paint, while the unpainted part had decayed around it.