We continued our progress northward, contending with the flood-tide and the drifting masses of ice; and the difficulties of such a navigation may be conceived from the following description of what happened to us on the 9th.
At half past eight on the morning of the 9th, a considerable space of open water being left to the northward of us by the ice that had broken off the preceding night, I left the Fury in a boat for the purpose of sounding along the shore in that direction, in readiness for moving whenever the Hecla should be enabled to rejoin us. I found the soundings regular in almost every part, and had just landed to obtain a view from an eminence, when I was recalled by a signal from the Fury, appointed to inform me of the approach of any ice. On my return, I found the external body once more in rapid motion to the southward with the flood-tide, and assuming its usual threatening appearance. For an hour or two the Fury was continually grazed, and sometimes heeled over by a degree of pressure which, under any other circumstances, would not have been considered a moderate one, but which the last two or three days' navigation had taught us to disregard, when compared with what we had reason almost every moment to expect. A little before noon a heavy floe, some miles in length, being probably a part of that lately detached from the shore, came driving down fast towards us, giving us serious reason to apprehend some more fatal catastrophe than any we had yet encountered. In a few minutes it came in contact, at the rate of a mile and a half an hour, with a point of the land-ice left the preceding night by its own separation, breaking it up with a tremendous crash, and forcing numberless immense masses, perhaps many tons in weight, to the height of fifty or sixty feet, from whence they again rolled down on the inner or land side, and were quickly succeeded by a fresh supply. While we were obliged to be quiet spectators of this grand but terrific sight, being within five or six hundred yards of the point, the danger to ourselves was twofold; first, lest the floe should now swing in, and serve us much in the same manner; and, secondly, lest its pressure should detach the land-ice to which we were secured, and thus set us adrift and at the mercy of the tides. Happily, however, neither of these occurred, the floe remaining stationary for the rest of the tide, and setting off with the ebb which made soon after. In the mean while the Hecla had been enabled to get under sail, and was making considerable progress towards us, which determined me to move the Fury as soon as possible from her present situation into the bight I had sounded in the morning, where we made fast in five and a half fathoms alongside some very heavy grounded ice, one third of a mile from a point of land lying next to the northward of Cape Wilson, and which is low for a short distance next the sea. At nine o'clock a large mass of ice fell off the land-floe and struck our stern; and a "calf" lying under it, having lost its superincumbent weight, rose to the surface with considerable force, lifting our rudder violently in its passage, but doing no material injury.
On the 12th, observing an opening in the land like a river, I left the ship in a boat to examine the soundings of the coast. On approaching the opening, we found so strong a current setting out of it as to induce me to taste the water, which proved scarcely brackish; and a little closer in, perfectly fresh, though the depth was from fourteen to fifteen fathoms. As this stream was a sufficient security against any ice coming in, I determined to anchor the ships somewhere in its neighbourhood; and, having laid down a buoy in twelve fathoms, off the north point of the entrance, returned on board, when I found all the boats ahead endeavouring to tow the ships in-shore. This could be effected, however, only by getting them across the stream of the inlet to the northern shore; and here, finding some land-ice, the ships were secured late at night, after several hours of extreme labour to the people in the boats.
On the morning of the 13th, the ice being still close in with the land just to the northward of us, I determined on examining the supposed river in the boats, and, at the same time, to try our luck with the seines, as the place appeared a likely one for salmon. Immediately on opening the inlet we encountered a rapid current setting outward, and, after rowing a mile and a half to the N.W.b.W., the breadth of the stream varying from one third of a mile to four or five hundred yards, came to some shoal water extending quite across. Landing on the south shore and hauling the boats up above high-water mark, we rambled up the banks of the stream, which are low next the water, but rise almost immediately to the height of about two hundred feet. As we proceeded we gradually heard the noise of a fall of water; and being presently obliged to strike more inland, as the bank became more precipitous, soon obtained a fresh view of the stream running on a much higher level than before, and dashing with great impetuosity down two small cataracts. Just below this, however, where the river turns almost at a right angle, we perceived a much greater spray, as well as a louder sound; and, having walked a short distance down the bank, suddenly came upon the principal fall, of whose magnificence I am at a loss to give any adequate description. At the head of the fall, or where it commences its principal descent, the river is contracted to about one hundred and fifty feet in breadth, the channel being hollowed out through a solid rock of gneiss.
After falling about fifteen feet at angle of 30° with a vertical line, the width of the stream is still narrowed to about forty yards, and then, as if mustering its whole force previous to its final descent, is precipitated, in one vast, continuous sheet of water, almost perpendicular for ninety feet more. The dashing of the water from such a height produced the usual accompaniment of a cloud of spray broad columns of which were constantly forced up like the successive rushes of smoke from a vast furnace, and on this, near the top, a vivid iris or rainbow was occasionally formed by the bright rays of an unclouded sun. The basin that receives the water at the foot of the fall is nearly of a circular form, and about four hundred yards in diameter, being rather wider than the river immediately below it.
After remaining nearly an hour, fixed, as it were, to the spot by the novelty and magnificence of the scene before us, we continued our walk upward along the banks; and after passing the two smaller cataracts, found the river again increased in width to above two hundred yards, winding in the most romantic manner imaginable among the hills, and preserving, a smooth and unruffled surface for a distance of three or four miles that we traced it to the southwest above the fall. What added extremely to the beauty of this picturesque river, which Captain Lyon and myself named after our friend Mr. BARROW, Secretary to the Admiralty, was the richness of the vegetation on its banks, the enlivening brilliancy of a cloudless sky, and the animation given to the scene by several reindeer that were grazing beside the stream. Our sportsmen were fortunate in obtaining four of these animals; but we had no success with the seines, the ground proving altogether too rocky to use them with advantage or safety. We returned on board at thirty minutes past two P.M., after the most gratifying visit we had ever paid to the shore in these regions.
We found on our return that a fresh, southerly breeze, which had been blowing for several hours, had driven the ice to some distance from the land; so that at four P.M., as soon as the flood-tide had slackened, we cast off and made all possible sail to the northward, steering for a headland, remarkable for having a patch of land towards the sea, that appeared insular in sailing along shore. As we approached this headland, which I named after my friend Mr. PENRHYN, the prospect became more and more enlivening; for the sea was found to be navigable in a degree very seldom experienced in these regions, and, the land trending two or three points to the westward of north, gave us reason to hope we should now be enabled to take a decided and final turn in that anxiously desired direction. As we rounded Cape Penrhyn at seven P.M., we began gradually to lose sight of the external body of ice, sailing close along that which was still attached in very heavy floes to this part of the coast. Both wind and tide being favourable, our progress was rapid, and unobstructed, and nothing could exceed the interest and delight with which so unusual an event was hailed by us. Before midnight the wind came more off the land, and then became light and variable, after which it settled in the northwest, with thick weather for several hours.
In the course of this day the walruses became more and more numerous every hour, lying in large herds upon the loose pieces of drift-ice; and it having fallen calm at one P.M., we despatched our boats to kill some for the sake of the oil which they afford. On approaching the ice, our people found them huddled close to, and even lying upon, one another, in separate droves of from twelve to thirty, the whole number near the boats being perhaps about two hundred..Most of them waited quietly to be fired at: and even after one or two discharges did not seem to be greatly disturbed, but allowed the people to land on the ice near them, and, when approached, showed an evident disposition to give battle. After they had got into the water, three were struck with harpoons and killed from the boats. When first wounded they became quite furious, and one, which had been struck from Captain Lyon's boat, made a resolute attack upon her and injured several of the planks with its enormous tusks. A number of the others came round them, also repeatedly striking the wounded animals with their tusks, with the intention either of getting them away, or else of joining in the attack upon them. Many of these animals had young ones, which, when assaulted, they either took between their fore-flippers to carry off, or bore away on their backs. Both of those killed by the Fury's boats were females, and the weight of the largest was fifteen hundred and two quarters nearly; but it was by no means remarkable for the largeness of its dimensions. The peculiar barking noise made by the walrus when irritated, may be heard, on a calm day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally touched by one of the oars in Lieutenant Nias's boat, took hold of it between its flippers, and, forcibly twisting it out of the man's hand, snapped it in two. They produced us very little oil, the blubber being thin and poor at this season, but were welcomed in a way that had not been anticipated; for some quarters of this "marine beef," as Captain Cook has called it, being hung up for steaks, the meat was not only eaten, but eagerly sought after on this and every other occasion throughout the voyage, by all those among us who could overcome the prejudice arising chiefly from the dark colour of the flesh. In no other respect that I could ever discover, is the meat of the walrus, when fresh-killed, in the slightest degree unpalatable. The heart and liver are indeed excellent.
After an unobstructed night's run, during which we met with no ice except in some loose "streams," the water became so much shoaler as to make it necessary to proceed with greater caution. About this time, also, a great deal of high land came in sight to the northward and eastward, which, on the first inspection of the Esquimaux charts, we took to be the large portion of land called Ke=iyuk-tar-ruoke,[[001]] between which and the continent the promised strait lay that was to lead us to the westward. So far all was satisfactory; but, after sailing a few miles farther, it is impossible to describe our disappointment and mortification in perceiving an unbroken sheet of ice extending completely across the supposed passage from one land to the other. This consisted of a floe so level and continuous, that a single glance was sufficient to assure us of the disagreeable fact, that it was the ice formed in its present situation during the winter, and still firmly attached to the land on every side. It was certain, from its continuous appearance for some miles that we ran along its edge, that it had suffered no disruption this season, which circumstance involved the necessity of our awaiting that operation, which nature seemed scarcely yet to have commenced in this neighbourhood, before we could hope to sail round the northeastern point of the American continent.
At thirty minutes past nine A.M. we observed several tents on the low shore immediately abreast of us, and presently afterward five canoes made their appearance at the edge of the land-ice intervening between us and the beach. We soon found, by the cautious manner in which the canoes approached us, that our Winter Island friends had not yet reached this neighbourhood. In a few minutes after we had joined them, however, a few presents served to dissipate all their apprehensions, if, indeed, people could be said to entertain any who thus fearlessly met us half way; and we immediately persuaded them to turn back with us to the shore. Being under sail in the boat, with a fresh breeze, we took two of the canoes in tow, and dragged them along at a great rate, much to the satisfaction of the Esquimaux, who were very assiduous in piloting us to the best landing-place upon the ice, where we were met by several of their companions and conducted to the tents. Before we had reached the shore, however, we had obtained one very interesting piece of information, namely, that it was Igloolik on which we were now about to land, and that we must therefore have made a very near approach to the strait which, as we hoped, was to conduct us once more into the Polar Sea.