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JOURNAL
OF THE
THIRD VOYAGE
FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A
NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

by
CAPT. W. E. PARRY, R.N., F.R.S.,
and commander of the expedition.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE.
1889.

INTRODUCTION.

William Edward Parry, the son of a physician, was born at Bath in December, 1790. At the age of thirteen he was entered as a first-class volunteer on board the flag-ship of the Channel fleet, and after seven years’ service and careful study of his profession he obtained a commission in 1810 as lieutenant in the navy. He was then at once, aged twenty, sent to the Arctic seas, where he was during two or three years in command of a ship for protection of the British whale fisheries and for revision of the admiralty charts. In 1813 he was recalled from that service and sent on blockade service to the North American station, where he remained about four years, and occupied his leisure in writing a book on “Nautical Astronomy by Night,” which he published upon his return to England in 1817.

At that time the search for a North-West Passage to Eastern Asia had been suspended for more than half a century. No expedition had been sent

out since 1746. But after Lieutenant Parry’s return from the North American station, an expedition was prepared under Sir John Ross in the Isabella, which sailed in April, 1818, accompanied by the Alexander, to the command of which Parry was appointed, Sir John Ross being chief of the expedition. They went by Davis’s Straits to Lancaster Sound, where Sir John Ross gave up hope of success and turned back; though Lieutenant Parry would have gone on. Next year Parry was entrusted with an expedition of his own, which set out in May, 1819, and reached Lancaster Sound in July, discovered Prince Regent’s Inlet, and Barrow Straits, named after Sir John Barrow, Secretary to the Admiralty, who was active promoter of these expeditions. Parry wintered among the ice and returned next year, having pushed Arctic discovery by thirty degrees of longitude farther than any who had gone before. That was Parry’s first voyage, from which he returned to be received with triumph by his countrymen. He was advanced to the rank of Commander in November, 1820, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He had shown in what direction to proceed with further search, and at the age of thirty

had established for himself a place of lasting honour in the history of English navigation.

Commander Parry was sent on a second expedition in 1821, from which he returned in 1823. He was to explore the Fox Channel, for the purpose of ascertaining whether it was connected with the Arctic Sea of his first voyage. This voyage had no important results; and in 1824 Parry started again on the third voyage, of which this volume contains his Journal. In 1827 he sailed again in the Hecla, but found himself sledging over ice that floated southward as fast as he travelled forward on it northward. He returned then to the work ashore, as a hydrographer, for which his thorough knowledge of navigation marked him out. Desire for a more active life caused him to spend four or five years in Australia (from 1829 to 1834) as Commissioner to the Agricultural Company of Australia. He was knighted, and became in 1852 a Rear-Admiral. Sir Edward Parry was Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital at the time of his death, in July, 1855.

H. M.

THIRD VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

INTRODUCTION.

Notwithstanding the want of success of the late Expedition to the Polar Seas, it was resolved to make another attempt to effect a passage by sea, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The chief attentions in the equipment of the present expedition consisted in the placing of Sylvester’s warming stove in the very bottom of the ship’s hold, in substituting a small quantity of salt beef for a part of the pork, and in furnishing a much larger supply of newly corned beef. Preserved carrots and parsnips, salmon, cream, pickles of onions, beetroot, cabbage, and, to make the most of our stowage, split pease instead of whole ones, were supplied. A small quantity of beef pemmican, made by pounding the meat with a certain portion of fat, as described by Captain Franklin, was also furnished.

To the officers, seamen, and marines my best acknowledgments are once more due, for the zealous support I have at all times received from them in the course of this service; and I am happy to repeat my conviction that, had it depended on their conduct and exertion, our most sanguine expectations would, long ere this, have been crowned with complete success.

CHAPTER I.

Passage to the Whale-fish Islands, and Removal of Stores from the Transport—Enter the Ice in Baffin’s Bay—Difficulties of Penetrating to the Westward—Quit the Ice in Baffin’s Bay—Remarks on the Obstructions encountered by the Ships, and on the Severity of the Season.

The equipment of the Hecla and Fury, and the loading of the William Harris transport, being completed, we began to move down the river from Deptford on the 8th of May, 1824, and on the 10th, by the assistance of the steamboat, the three ships had reached Northfleet, where they received their powder and their ordnance stores. Two days were here employed in fixing, under the superintendence of Mr. Barlow and Lieutenant Foster, the plate, invented by the former gentleman, for correcting the deviation of the compass produced by the attraction of the ship’s iron; and the continuance of strong easterly winds prevented our getting to the Nore till the 16th. During our stay at Northfleet the ships were visited by Viscount Melville, and the other Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, who were pleased to approve of our general equipment and arrangements.

During our passage across the Atlantic in June, and afterwards on our way up Davis’s Strait, we threw overboard daily a strong copper cylinder, containing the usual papers, giving an account of our situation. We also took every opportunity afforded by light winds, to try the temperature of the sea at different depths, as compared with that at the surface.

I now determined, as the quickest and most secure mode of clearing the transport, to anchor at the Whale-fish Islands, rather than incur the risk of hampering and

damaging her among the ice. Fresh gales and thick weather, however, prevented our doing so till the 26th, when we anchored at eight A.M., in seventeen fathoms, mooring the ships by hawsers to the rocks, and then immediately commenced our work. In the meantime the observatory and instruments were landed on a small island, called by the Danes Boat Island, where Lieutenant Foster and myself carried on the magnetic and other observations during the stay of the Expedition at this anchorage, of which a survey was also made.

Early on the morning of the 3rd of July, the whole of our stores being removed, and Lieutenant Pritchard having received his orders, together with our despatches and letters for England, the William Harris weighed with a light wind from the northward, and was towed out to sea by our boats. The day proving calm, we employed it in swinging the Hecla, in order to obtain the amount of the deviation of the magnetic needle, and to fix afresh the iron plate for correcting it. On the following morning, the wind being southerly, the pilots came on board, and the Hecla weighed to run through the north passage; in doing which she grounded on a rock lying directly in the channel, and having only thirteen feet upon it at low water, which our sounding boats had missed, and of which the pilot was ignorant. The tide being that of ebb we were unable to heave the ship off immediately, and at low water she had sewed three feet forward. It was not till half-past one P.M., that she floated, when it became necessary to drop her down between the rock and the shore with hawsers; after which we made sail, and being soon after joined by the Fury, which came out by the other channel, we stood round the islands to the northwards. This rock was not

the only one found by our boats which may prove dangerous to ships going in and out of this harbour, and with which our pilots were unacquainted. Another was discovered by Mr. Head, about one-third of the distance across from Kron Prins Island to the opposite shore of the S.E. entrance, and has not more than eighteen feet water on it at low tide; it lies very much in the way of ships coming in at that channel, which is the most commonly used. The latitude of the island, on which the observations were made, called by the Danes Boat Island, is 74° 28′ 15″; its longitude by our chronometers, 53° 12′ 56″; the dip of the magnetic needle, 82° 53′ 66″; and the variation, 70° 23′ 57″ westerly. The time of high water, at new moon, on the 26th of June, was a quarter-past eight, the highest tides being the third and fourth after the conjunction, and the perpendicular rise seven feet and a half.

The ships standing in towards Lievely on the afternoon of the 5th, Lieutenant Graah very kindly came off to the Fury, which happened to be the nearest in shore, for the purpose of taking leave of us. On his quitting the ship a salute of ten guns was fired at Lievely, which we returned with an equal number; and I sent to Lieutenant Graah, by a canoe that came on board the Hecla, an account of the situation of the rocks we had discovered. Light northerly winds, together with the dull sailing of our now deeply laden ships, prevented our making much progress for several days, and kept us in the neighbourhood of numerous icebergs, which it is dangerous to approach when there is any swell. We counted from the deck, at one time, no less than one hundred and three of these immense bodies, some of them from one to two hundred feet in height above the sea; and it was necessary,

in one or two instances, to tow the ships clear of them with the boats. We had occasion, about this time, to remark the more than usual frequency of fogs with a northerly wind, a circumstance from which the whalers are accustomed to augur a considerable extent of open water in that direction.

The ice soon beginning to close around us, our progress became so slow that, on the 17th, we saw a ship at the margin of the “pack,” and two more on the following day. We supposed these to be whalers, which, after trying to cross the ice to the northward, had returned to make the attempt in the present latitude; a supposition which our subsequent difficulties served to strengthen. From this time, indeed, the obstructions from the quantity, magnitude, and closeness of the ice, were such as to keep our people almost constantly employed in heaving, warping, or sawing through it; and yet with so little success that, at the close of the month of July, we had only penetrated seventy miles to the westward, or to the longitude of about 62° 10′. Here, while closely beset, on the 1st of August, we encountered a hard gale from the south-east, which pressing the ice together in every direction, by mass overlaying mass for hours together, the Hecla received several very awkward “nips,” and was once fairly laid on her broadside by a strain which must inevitably have crushed a vessel of ordinary strength. In such cases, the ice is forced under a ship’s bottom on one side, and on the other up her side, both powers thus acting in such a manner as to bring her on her “beam-ends.” This is, in fact, the most favourable manner in which a ship can receive the pressure, and would perhaps only occur with ice comparatively not very heavy, though sufficiently so, it is said, to have run completely over a

ship in some extreme and fatal cases. With ice of still more formidable dimensions a vessel would probably, by an equal degree of pressure, be absolutely crushed, in consequence of the increased difficulty of sinking it on one side, and causing it to rise on the other.

Sept. 9th.—I shall doubtless be readily excused for not having entered in this journal a detailed narrative of the obstacles we met with, and of the unwearied exertions of the officers and men to overcome them, during the tedious eight weeks employed in crossing this barrier. I have avoided this detail because, while it might appear an endeavour to magnify ordinary difficulties, which it is our business to overcome rather than to discuss, I am convinced that no description of mine, nor even the minute formality of the log-book, could convey an adequate idea of the truth. The strain we constantly had occasion to heave on the hawsers, as springs to force the ships through the ice, was such as perhaps no ships ever before attempted; and by means of Phillips’s invaluable capstan, we often separated floes of such magnitude as must otherwise have baffled every effort. In doing this, it was next to impossible to avoid exposing the men to very great risk from the frequent breaking of the hawsers. On one occasion, three of the Hecla’s seamen were knocked down as instantaneously as by a gunshot by the sudden flying-out of an anchor; and a marine of the Fury suffered in a similar manner when working at the capstan; but, providentially, they all escaped with severe contusions. A more serious accident occurred in the breaking of the spindle of the Fury’s windlass, depriving her of the use of the windlass-end during the rest of the season.

The constant besetment of the ships, and our daily

observations for latitude and longitude, afforded a favourable opportunity for ascertaining precisely the set of any currents by which the whole body of ice might be actuated. By attending very carefully to all the circumstances, it was evident that a daily set to the southward obtained, when the wind was northerly, differing in amount from two or three to eight or ten miles per day, according to the strength of the breeze; but a northerly current was equally apparent, and fully to the same amount, whenever the wind blew from the southward. A circumstance more remarkable than these, however, forced itself strongly upon my notice at this time, which was, that a westerly set was very frequently apparent, even against a fresh breeze blowing from that quarter. I mention the circumstance in this place, because I may hereafter have to offer a remark or two on this fact in connection with some others of a similar nature noticed elsewhere.

With respect to the dimensions of the ice through which we had now scrambled our way, principally by warping and towing a distance of between three and four hundred miles, I remarked that it for the most part increased, as well in the thickness as the extent of the floes, as we advanced westward about the parallel of 71°. During our subsequent progress to the north, we also met with some of enormous dimensions, several of the floes, to which we applied our hawsers and the power of the improved capstan, being at their margin more than twenty feet above the level of the sea, and over some of these we could not see from the mast-head. Upon the whole, however, the magnitude of the ice became somewhat less towards the north-west; and within thirty miles of that margin the masses were comparatively

small, and their thickness much diminished. Bergs were in sight during the whole passage; but they were more numerous towards the middle of the “pack,” and rather the most so to the southward.

CHAPTER II.

Enter Sir James Lancaster’s Sound—Land at Cape Warrender—Meet with young ice—Ships beset and carried near the shore—Driven back to Navy-board Inlet—Run to the westward, and enter Prince Regent’s Inlet—Arrival at Port Bowen.

All our past obstacles were in a moment forgotten when we once more saw an open sea before us; but it must be confessed that it was not so easy to forget that the middle of September was already near at hand, without having brought us even to the entrance of Sir James Lancaster’s Sound. That not a moment might be lost, however, in pushing to the westward, a press of canvas was crowded, and being happily favoured with an easterly breeze, on the morning of the 10th of September we caught a glimpse of the high bold land on the north side of the magnificent inlet up which our course was once more to be directed. From the time of our leaving the main body of ice we met with none of any kind, and the entrance to the Sound was, as usual, entirely free from it, except here and there a berg, floating about in that solitary grandeur of which these enormous masses, when occurring in the midst of an extensive sea, are calculated to convey so sublime an idea.

On the morning of the 11th, the ships being taken a-back with a fresh westerly breeze when near Cape Warrender, I landed in a small bay close to the westward

of it, accompanied by several of the officers, in order to examine the country, and to make the necessary observations.

On the morning of the 12th we were once more favoured with a breeze from the eastward, but so light and unsteady that our progress was vexatiously slow; and on the 13th, when within seven leagues of Cape York, we had the mortification to perceive the sea ahead of us covered with young ice, the thermometer having for two days past ranged only from 18° to 20°. On reaching it we had, as usual, recourse to “sallying,” breaking it with boats ahead, and various other expedients, all alike ineffectual without a fresh and free breeze furnishing a constant impetus; so that, after seven or eight hours of unsuccessful labour in this way, we were obliged to remain as we were, fairly and immovably beset.

It now appeared high time to determine as to the propriety of still continuing our efforts to push to the westward or of returning to England, according to my instructions on that head under particular circumstances. As the crossing of the ice in Baffin’s Bay had of itself unexpectedly occupied nearly the whole of one season, it could not, of course, be considered that the attempt to penetrate to the westward in the manner directed by their lordships had as yet been made, nor could it, indeed, be made during the present year. I could not, therefore, have a moment’s hesitation as to the propriety of pushing on as far as the present season would permit, and then giving a fair trial during the whole of the next summer to the route I was directed by my instructions to pursue. In order, however, to confirm my own opinion on this subject, I requested to be furnished with that of Captain Hoppner; and finding that his views entirely agreed with

my own, I resolved still to pursue our object by all the means in our power.

The next breeze sprang up from the westward, drawing also from the southward at times, out of Prince Regent’s Inlet, and for three days we were struggling with the young ice to little or no purpose, now and then gaining half a mile of ground to windward in a little “hole” of open water, then losing as much by the necessity of bearing up or wearing (for the ice was too strong to allow us to tack), sallying from morning to night with all hands, and with the watch at night, two boats constantly under the bows; and, after all, rather losing ground than otherwise, while the young ice was every hour increasing in thickness.

On the 17th, when we had driven back rather to the eastward of Admiralty Inlet, an easterly breeze again enabled us to make some progress. The sea was now for the most part covered with young ice, which had become so thick as to look white throughout its whole extent. The holes of water could now, therefore, be more distinctly seen, and by taking advantage of these we succeeded in making a few miles of westing, the “leads” taking us more in-shore, towards Admiralty Inlet, than before. Towards sunset we became more and more hampered, and were eventually beset during the night. A breeze sprang up from the westward, which increasing to a fresh gale, we found ourselves at daylight far to the eastward, and also within two miles of the land, near a long low point, which on the former voyages had not been seen. The sea was covered with ice between us and the shore, all of this year’s formation, but now of considerable thickness and formidable appearance. The wind continuing strong, the whole body was constantly pressed in upon the land,

bearing the ships along with it, and doubling one sheet over another, sometimes to a hundred thicknesses. We quickly shoaled the water from seventy to forty fathoms, the latter depth occurring about a mile from the beach; and after this we drifted but little, the ice being blocked up between the point and a high perpendicular berg lying aground off it.

The sails being furled, and the top-gallant yards got down, we now considered ourselves fortunate in our situation; for had we been only a quarter of a mile farther out we should have been within the influence of a current that was there sweeping the whole body of ice to the eastward, at the rate of a mile and a half an hour. Indeed, at times this current was disposed to approach us still nearer, carrying away pieces of ice close to our quarter; but by means of long hawsers, secured to the heaviest and most compact of the small floes in-shore of us, we contrived to hold on. Under such circumstances, it evidently became expedient to endeavour, by sawing, to get the ships as close in-shore as possible, so as to secure them either to grounded ice or by anchoring within the shelter of a bay at no great distance inside of us; for it now seemed not unlikely that winter was about to put a premature stop to all further operations at sea for this season. At all events it was necessary to consult the immediate safety of the ships, and to keep them from being drifted back to the eastward. I therefore gave orders for endeavouring to get the ships in towards the bay by cutting through what level floes still remained. At the same time an officer was despatched to examine the shore, which was found safe, with regular soundings in every part. So strong had been the pressure while the ice was forcing in upon us, that on the 20th,

after liberating the Hecla on one side, she was as firmly cemented to it on the other as after a winter’s formation, and we could only clear her by heavy and repeated “sallying.” After cutting in two or three hundred yards, while the people were at dinner on the 21st, our canal closed, by the external pressure coming upon the parts which we had weakened, and in a few minutes the whole was once more in motion, or, as the seamen not inaptly expressed it, “alive,” mass doubling under mass, and raising those which were uppermost to a considerable height. The ice thus pressed together was now about ten feet in thickness in some places, and on an average not less than four or five, so that while thus forced in upon a ship, although soft in itself, it caused her to tremble exceedingly; a sensation, indeed, commonly experienced in forcing through young ice of considerable thickness. We were now once more obliged to be quiet spectators of what was going on around us, having with extreme difficulty succeeded in saving most of our tools that were lying on the ice when the squeezing suddenly began. Towards evening we made fast to a stationary floe, at the distance of one mile from the beach, in eighteen fathoms, where we remained tolerably quiet for the night, the ice outside of us, and as far as we could see, setting constantly at a great rate to the eastward. Some of our gentlemen, who had landed in the course of the day, and who had to scramble their way on board over the ice in motion, described the bay as deeper than it appeared from the offing. Dr. Neill “found, on such parts of the beach as were not covered with ice or snow, fragments of bituminous shale, flinty slate, and iron-stone, interspersed amongst a blue-coloured limestone gravel. As far as he was able to travel inland, the surface was

composed of secondary limestone, partially covered with a thin layer of calc-sinter. From the scantiness of the vegetation here, the limestone seemed likely to contain a large proportion of magnesia. Dr. Neill was about to examine for coal, which the formation led him to expect, when the ice was observed to be in motion, obliging him hastily to return on board.” Lieutenant Ross “found, about two-thirds up a small peaked insulated hill of limestone, between three and four hundred feet above the level of the sea, several pieces of coal, which he found to burn with a clear bright flame, crackling much, and throwing off slaty splinters.”

Hares’ burrows were numerous on this hill; Lieutenant Ross saw two of these animals, one of which he killed. A fox was also observed in its summer dress; and these, with a pair of ravens, some wingless ducks, and several snow-buntings, were all the animals noticed at this place.

A sudden motion of the ice on the morning of the 22nd, occasioned by a change of wind to the S.E., threatened to carry us directly off the land. It was now more than ever desirable to hold on, as this breeze was likely to clear the shore, and at the same time to give us a run to the westward. Hawsers were therefore run out to the land-ice, composed of some heavy masses, almost on the beach. With the Hecla this succeeded, but the Fury, being much farther from the shore, soon began to move out with the whole body of ice, which, carrying her close to the large berg off the point, swept her round the latter, where, after great exertion, Captain Hoppner succeeded in getting clear, and then made sail to beat back to us. In the meantime the strain put upon the Hecla’s hawsers being too great for them, they snapped one after another,

and a bower-anchor was let go as a last resource. It was one of Hawkins’s, with the double fluke, and immediately brought up, not merely the ship, but a large floe of young ice, which had just broken our stream-cable. All hands were sent upon the floe to cut it up ahead, and the whole operation was a novel and, at times, a fearful one; for the ice, being weakened by the cutting, would suddenly gather fresh way astern, carrying men and tools with it, while the chain-cable continued to plough through it in a manner which gave one the idea of something alive, and continually renewing its attacks. The anchor held surprisingly, and after this tremendous strain had been put upon it for above an hour, we had fairly cut the floe in two, and the ship was riding in clear water about half a mile from the shore.

I was now in hopes we should have made some progress, for a large channel of clear water was left open in-shore; a breeze blew off the land, and the temperature of the atmosphere had again risen considerably. We had not sailed five miles, however, when a westerly wind took us aback, and a most dangerous swell set directly upon the shore, obliging me immediately to stand off the land; and the Fury being still to the eastward of the point, I ran round it, in order to rejoin her before sunset. The current was here setting very fast to the eastward, not less, I think, in some places, than two miles an hour, so that, even in a clear sea, we had little chance of stemming it, much less beset as we were in young ice during an unusually dark night of nine or ten hours’ duration, with a heavy fall of snow. The consequence was, that when we made the land on the morning of the 23rd, we had been drifted the incredible distance of eight or nine leagues during the night, finding ourselves off the Wollaston

Islands at the entrance of Navy Board Inlet. We stood in under the islands to look for anchorage during the night, but the water being everywhere too deep close to the shore, we made fast at sunset to some very heavy ice upon a point, which we took to be the main land, but which Captain Hoppner afterwards found to be upon one of the islands, which are at least four in number.

After midnight on the 27th the wind began to moderate, and by degrees also drew more to the southward than before. At daylight, therefore, we found ourselves seven or eight miles from the land; but no ice was in sight, except the “sludge,” of honey-like consistence, with which almost the whole sea was covered. A strong blink, extending along the eastern horizon, pointed out the position of the main body of ice, which was farther distant from the eastern shore of the inlet than I ever saw it. Being assisted by a fine working breeze, which at the same time prevented the formation of any more ice to obstruct us, we made considerable progress along the land, and at noon were nearly abreast of Jackson Inlet, which we now saw to be considerably larger than our distant view of it on the former voyage had led us to suppose. We found also that what at a distance appeared an island in the entrance was in reality a dark-looking rocky hill, on the south side. A few more tacks brought us to the entrance of Port Bowen, which for two or three days past I had determined to make our wintering-place, if, as there was but little reason to expect, we should be so fortunate as to push the ships thus far. My reasons for coming to this determination, in which Captain Hoppner’s opinion also served to confirm me, will be sufficiently gathered from the operations of the preceding fortnight, which convinced me that the precarious chance

of making a few miles’ more progress could no longer be suffered to weigh against the evident risk now attending further attempts at navigation: a risk not confined to the mere exposure of the ships to imminent danger, or the hazard of being shut out of a winter harbour, but to one which, I may be permitted to say, we all dreaded as much as these—the too obvious probability of our once more being driven back to the eastward, should we again become hampered in the young ice. Joining to this the additional consideration that no known place of security existed to the southward on this coast, I had not the smallest hesitation in availing myself of the present opportunity to get the ships into harbour. Beating up, therefore, to Port Bowen, we found it filled with “old” and “hummocky” ice, attached to the shores on both sides, as low down as about three-quarters of a mile below Stoney Island. Here we made fast in sixty-two fathoms of water, running our hawsers far in upon the ice, in case of its breaking off at the margin.

On entering Port Bowen, I was forcibly struck with the circumstance of the cliffs on the south side of the harbour being, in many places, covered with a layer of blue transparent-looking ice, occasioned undoubtedly by the snow partially thawing there, and then being arrested by the frost, and presenting a feature very indicative of the late cold summer. The same thing was observed on all the land to which we made a near approach on the south side of Barrow’s Strait this season, especially about Cape York and Eardley Bay; but as we had never been close to these parts of the shore in 1819, it did not occur to me as anything new or worthy of notice. At Port Bowen, however, which in that year was closely examined, I am quite certain that no such thing was to be

seen, even in the month of August, the cliffs being then quite clear of snow, except here and there a patch of drift.

Late as we had this year been (about the middle of October) in reaching Sir James Lancaster’s Sound, there would still have been time for a ship engaged in a whale-fishery to have reaped a tolerable harvest, as we met with a number of whales in every part of it, and even as far as the entrance of Port Bowen. The number registered altogether in our journals is between twenty and thirty, but I have no doubt that many more than these were seen, and that a ship expressly on the look-out for them would have found full occupation for her boats. Several which came near us were of large and “payable” dimensions. I confess, however, that had I been within the Sound, in a whaler, towards the close of so unfavourable a season as this, with the young ice forming so rapidly on the whole extent of the sea, I should not have been disposed to persevere in the fishery under circumstances so precarious, and to a ship unprepared for a winter involving such evident risk. It is probable, however, that on the outside the formation of young ice would have been much retarded by the swell; and I am inclined to believe that a season so unfavourable as this will be found of rare occurrence.

We observed a great many narwhals in different parts of Barrow’s Strait, and a few walruses, and should perhaps have seen many more of both, but for the continual presence of the young ice.

CHAPTER III.

Winter Arrangements—Improvements in Warming and Ventilating the Ships—Masquerades adopted as an Amusement to the Men—Establishment of Schools—Astronomical Observations—Meteorological Phenomena.

October.—Our present winter arrangements so closely resembled, in general, those before adopted, that a fresh description of them here would prove little more than a repetition of that already contained in the narratives of our former voyages. On each succeeding occasion, however, some improvements were made which, for the benefit of those hereafter engaged in similar enterprises, it may be proper to record. For all those whose lot it may be to succeed us, sooner or later, in these inhospitable regions, may be assured that it is only by rigid and unremitted attention to these and numberless other “little things” that they can hope to enjoy the good state of health which, under the Divine blessing, it has always been our happiness, in so extraordinary a degree, to experience.

In the description I shall offer of the appearances of nature, and of the various occurrences, during this winter, I know not how I can do better than pursue a method similar to that heretofore practised, by confining myself rather to the pointing out of any difference observed in them now and formerly, than by entering on a fresh description of the actual phenomena. To those who read, as well as to those who describe, the account of a winter passed in these regions can no longer be expected to afford the interest of novelty it once possessed; more especially in a station already delineated with tolerable geographical precision on our maps, and thus, as it were,

brought near to our firesides at home. Independently, indeed, of this circumstance, it is hard to conceive any one thing more like another than two winters passed in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions, except when variety happens to be afforded by intercourse with some other branch of “the whole family of man.” Winter after winter, nature here assumes an aspect so much alike, that cursory observation can scarcely detect a single feature of variety. The winter of more temperate climates, and even in some of no slight severity, is occasionally diversified by a thaw, which at once gives variety and comparative cheerfulness to the prospect. But here, when once the earth is covered, all is dreary, monotonous whiteness—not merely for days or weeks, but for more than half a year together. Whichever way the eye is turned, it meets a picture calculated to impress upon the mind an idea of inanimate stillness, of that motionless torpor with which our feelings have nothing congenial; of anything, in short, but life. In the very silence there is a deadness with which a human spectator appears out of keeping. The presence of man seems an intrusion on the dreary solitude of this wintry desert, which even its native animals have for awhile forsaken.

As this general description of the aspect of nature would suit alike each winter we have passed in the ice, so also, with very little variation, might our limited catalogue of occurrences and adventures serve equally for any one of those seasons. Creatures of circumstance, we act and feel as we did before on every like occasion, and as others will probably do after us in the same situation. Whatever difference time or events may have wrought in individual feelings, and however different the occupations which those feelings may have suggested,

they are not such as, without impertinence, can be intruded upon others; with these “the stranger intermeddleth not.” I am persuaded, therefore, that I shall be excused in sparing the dulness of another winter’s diary, and confining myself exclusively to those facts which appear to possess any scientific interest, to the few incidents which did diversify our confinement, and to such remarks as may contribute to the health and comfort of any future sojourners in these dreary regions.

It may well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments. Exposure to a cold atmosphere, when the body is well clothed, produces no bad effect whatever beyond a frost-bitten cheek, nose, or finger. As for any injury to healthy lungs from the breathing of cold air, or from sudden changes from this into a warm atmosphere, or vice versâ, it may with much confidence be asserted that, with due attention to external clothing, there is nothing in this respect to be apprehended. This inference, at least, would appear legitimate, from the fact that our crews, consisting of one hundred and twenty persons, have for four winters been constantly undergoing, for months together, a change of from eighty to a hundred degrees of temperature, in the space of time required for opening two doors (perhaps less than half a minute), without incurring any pulmonary complaints at all. Nor is a covering for the mouth at all necessary under these circumstances, though to most persons very conducive to comfort; for some individuals, from extreme dislike to the condensation and freezing of the breath about the “comforter” generally used for this purpose, have never

worn any such defence for the mouth; and this without the slightest injurious effect or uncomfortable feeling beyond that of a cold face, which becomes comparatively trifling by habit.

In speaking of the external clothing sufficient for health in this climate, it must be confessed that, in severe exposure, quite a load of woollen clothes, even of the best quality, is insufficient to retain a comfortable degree of warmth; a strong breeze carrying it off so rapidly that the sensation is that of the cold piercing through the body. A jacket made very long, like those called by seamen “pea-jackets,” and lined with fur throughout, would be more effectual than twice the weight of woollen clothes, and is indeed almost weather-proof. For the prevention of lumbago, to which our seamen are especially liable, from their well-known habit of leaving their loins imperfectly clothed, every man should be strictly obliged to wear, under his outer clothes, a canvas belt a foot broad, lined with flannel, and having straps to go over the shoulder.

It is certain, however, that no precautions in clothing are sufficient to maintain health during a Polar winter, without a due degree of warmth in the apartments we inhabit. Most persons are apt to associate with the idea of warmth, something like the comfort derived from a good fire on a winter’s evening at home; but in these regions the case is inconceivably different: here it is not simple comfort, but health, and therefore ultimately life, that depends upon it. The want of a constant supply of warmth is here immediately followed by a condensation of all the moisture, whether from the breath, victuals, or other sources, into abundant drops of water, very rapidly forming on all the coldest parts of the deck. A still

lower temperature modifies, and perhaps improves the annoyance by converting it into ice, which again an occasional increase of warmth dissolves into water. Nor is this the amount of the evil, though it is the only visible part of it; for not only is a moist atmosphere thus incessantly kept up, but it is rendered stagnant also by the want of that ventilation which warmth alone can furnish. With an apartment in this state, the men’s clothes and bedding are continually in a moist and unwholesome condition, generating a deleterious air, which there is no circulation to carry off; and whenever these circumstances combine for any length of time together, so surely may the scurvy, to say nothing of other diseases, be confidently expected to exhibit itself.

With a strong conviction of these facts, arising from the extreme anxiety with which I have been accustomed to watch every minute circumstance connected with the health of our people, it may be conceived how highly I must appreciate any means that can be devised to counteract effects so pernicious. Such means have been completely furnished by Mr. Sylvester’s warming apparatus—a contrivance of which I scarcely know how to express my admiration in adequate terms. The alteration adopted on this voyage, of placing this stove in the very bottom of the hold, produced not only the effect naturally to be expected from it, of increasing the rapidity of the current of warm air, and thus carrying it to all the officers’ cabins with less loss of heat in its passage; but was also accompanied by an advantage scarcely less important, which had not been anticipated. This was the perfect and uniform warmth maintained during the winter in both cable-tiers, which, when cleared of all the stores, gave us another habitable deck, on which more

than one-third of the men’s hammocks were berthed, thus affording to the ships’ companies, during seven or eight months of the year, the indescribable comfort of nearly twice the space for their beds, and twice the volume of air to breathe in. It need scarcely be added, how conducive to wholesome ventilation, and to the prevention of moisture below, such an arrangement proved; suffice it to say, that we have never before been so free from moisture, and that I cannot but chiefly attribute to this apparatus the unprecedented good state of health we enjoyed during this winter.

Every attention was, as usual, paid to the occupation and diversion of the men’s minds, as well as to the regularity of their bodily exercise. Our former amusements being almost worn threadbare, it required some ingenuity to devise any plan that should possess the charm of novelty to recommend it. This purpose was completely answered, however, by a proposal of Captain Hoppner, to attempt a masquerade, in which officers and men should alike take part, but which, without imposing any restraint whatever, would leave every one to their own choice, whether to join in this diversion or not. It is impossible that any idea could have proved more happy or more exactly suited to our situation. Admirably dressed characters of various descriptions readily took their parts, and many of these were supported with a degree of spirit and genuine humour which would not have disgraced a more refined assembly; while the latter might not have disdained, and would not have been disgraced by copying the good order, decorum, and inoffensive cheerfulness which our humble masquerades presented. It does especial credit to the dispositions and good sense of our men that, though all the officers entered

fully into the spirit of these amusements, which took place once a month alternately on board each ship, no instance occurred of anything that could interfere with the regular discipline, or at all weaken the respect of the men towards their superiors. Ours were masquerades without licentiousness—carnivals without excess.

But an occupation not less assiduously pursued, and of infinitely more eventual benefit, was furnished by the re-establishment of our schools, under the voluntary superintendence of my friend Mr. Hooper in the Hecla, and of Mr. Mogg in the Fury. By the judicious zeal of Mr. Hooper, the Hecla’s school was made subservient, not merely to the improvement of the men in reading and writing (in which, however, their progress was surprisingly great), but also to the cultivation of that religious feeling which so essentially improves the character of a seaman, by furnishing the highest motives for increased attention to every other duty. Nor was the benefit confined to the eighteen or twenty individuals whose want of scholarship brought them to the school-table, but extended itself to the rest of the ship’s company, making the whole lower-deck such a scene of quiet, rational occupation as I never before witnessed on board a ship. And I do not speak lightly, when I express my thorough persuasion that to the moral effects thus produced upon the minds of the men were owing, in a very high degree, the constant yet sober cheerfulness, the uninterrupted good order, and even, in some measure, the extraordinary state of health which prevailed among us during this winter.

Immediately after the ships were finally secured, we erected the observatory on shore, and commenced our arrangements for the various observations to which our

attention was to be directed during the winter. The interest of these, especially of such as related to magnetism, increased so much as we proceeded, that the neighbourhood of the observatory assumed ere long almost the appearance of a scattered village, the number of detached houses, having various needles set up in them, soon amounting to seven or eight.

The extreme facility with which sounds are heard at a considerable distance in severely cold weather has often been a subject of remark; but a circumstance occurred at Port Bowen which deserves to be noticed, as affording a sort of measure of this facility, or at least conveying to others some definite idea of the fact. Lieutenant Foster, having occasion to send a man from the observatory to the opposite shore of the harbour, a measured distance of 6696 feet, or about one statute mile and two-tenths, in order to fix a meridian mark, had placed a second person half-way between to repeat his directions; but he found, on trial, that this precaution was unnecessary, as he could without difficulty keep up a conversation with the man at the distant station. The thermometer was at this time -18°, the barometer 30.14 inches, and the weather nearly calm, and quite clear and serene.

The meteorological phenomena observed during this winter, like most of its other occurrences, differed so little in character from those noticed on the former voyages, as to render a separate description of each wholly unnecessary.

This winter certainly afforded but few brilliant displays of the Aurora. The following notice includes all that appear to me to require a separate description.

Late on the night of the 21st of December the phenomenon appeared partially, and with a variable light,

in different parts of the southern sky for several hours. At seven on the following morning it became more brilliant and stationary, describing a well-defined arch, extending from the E.S.E. horizon to that at W.N.W., and passing through the zenith. A very faint arch was also visible on each side of this, appearing to diverge from the same points in the horizon, and separating to twenty degrees distance in the zenith. It remained thus for twenty minutes, when the coruscations from each arch met, and after a short but brilliant display of light, gradually died away. Early on the morning of the 15th of January, 1825, the Aurora broke out to the southward, and continued variable for three hours, between a N.W. and S.E. bearing. From three to four o’clock the whole horizon, from south to west, was brilliantly illuminated, the light being continuous almost throughout the whole extent, and reaching several degrees in height. Very bright vertical rays were constantly shooting upwards from the general mass. At half-past five it again became so brilliant as to attract particular notice, describing two arches passing in an east and west direction, very near the zenith, with bright coruscations issuing from it; but the whole gradually disappeared with the returning dawn. At dusk the same evening, the Aurora again appeared in the southern quarter, and continued visible nearly the whole night, but without any remarkable feature.

About midnight on the 27th of January, this phenomenon broke out in a single compact mass of brilliant yellow light, situated about a S.E. bearing, and appearing only a short distance above the land. This mass of light, notwithstanding its general continuity, sometimes appeared to be evidently composed of numerous pencils of

rays, compressed, as it were, laterally into one, its limits both to the right and left being well defined and nearly vertical. The light, though very bright at all times, varied almost constantly in intensity, and this had the appearance (not an uncommon one in the Aurora) of being produced by one volume of light overlaying another, just as we see the darkness and density of smoke increased by cloud rolling over cloud. While Lieutenants Sherer and Ross, and myself, were admiring the extreme beauty of this phenomenon from the observatory, we all simultaneously uttered an exclamation of surprise at seeing a bright ray of the Aurora shoot suddenly downward from the general mass of light, and between us and the land, which was there distant only three thousand yards. Had I witnessed this phenomenon by myself, I should have been disposed to receive with caution the evidence even of my own senses, as to this last fact; but the appearance conveying precisely the same idea to three individuals at once, all intently engaged in looking towards the spot, I have no doubt that the ray of light actually passed within that distance of us.

About one o’clock on the morning of the 23rd of February, the Aurora again appeared over the hills in a south direction, presenting a brilliant mass of light, very similar to that just described. The rolling motion of the light laterally was here also very striking, as well as the increase of its intensity thus occasioned. The light occupied horizontally about a point of the compass, and extended in height scarcely a degree above the land, which seemed, however, to conceal from us a part of the phenomenon. It was always evident enough that the most attenuated light of the Aurora sensibly dimmed the

stars, like a thin veil drawn over them. We frequently listened for any sound proceeding from this phenomenon, but never heard any. Our variation-needles, which were extremely light, suspended in the most delicate manner, and from the weak directive energy susceptible of being acted upon by a very slight disturbing force, were never in a single instance sensibly affected by the Aurora, which could scarcely fail to have been observed at some time or other, had any such disturbance taken place, the needles being visited every hour for several months, and oftener, when anything occurred to make it desirable.

The meteors called Falling-stars were much more frequent during this winter than we ever before saw them, and particularly during the month of December. On the 8th, at a quarter past seven in the evening, a particularly large and brilliant meteor of this kind fell in the S.S.W., the weather being very fine and clear overhead, but hazy near the horizon. On the following day, between four and five P.M., another very brilliant one was observed in the north, falling from an altitude of about thirty-five degrees till lost behind the land; the weather was at this time clear and serene, and no remarkable change took place. On the 12th, no less than five meteors of this kind were observed in a quarter of an hour, and as these were attended with some remarkable circumstances, I shall here give the account furnished me by Mr. Ross, who with Mr. Bell observed these phenomena. “From seven to nine P.M. the wind suddenly increased from a moderate breeze to a strong gale from the southward. At ten it began to moderate a little; the haze, which had for several hours obscured every star, gradually sinking towards the horizon, and by

eleven o’clock the whole atmosphere was extremely clear above the altitude of five or six degrees. The thermometer also fell from -5° to -9° as the haze cleared away. At a quarter past eleven my attention was directed by Mr. Bell to some meteors which he observed, and in less than a quarter of an hour five were seen. The two first, noticed only by Mr. Bell, fell in quick succession, probably not more than two minutes apart. The third appeared about eight minutes after these, and exceeded in brilliancy any of the surrounding stars. It took a direction from near β Tauri, and passing slowly towards the Pleiades, left behind it sparks like the tail of a rocket, these being visible for a few seconds after the meteor appeared to break, which it did close to the Pleiades. The fourth meteor made its appearance very near the same place as the last, and about five minutes after it. Taking the course of those seen by Mr. Bell, it passed to the eastward, and disappeared half way between β Tauri and Gemini. The fifth of these meteors was seen to the eastward, passing through a space of about five degrees from north to south parallel to the horizon, and moving along the upper part of the cloud of haze which still extended to the altitude of five or six degrees. It was more dim than the rest, and of a red colour like Aldebaran. The third of these meteors was the only one that left a tail behind it, as above described. There was a faint appearance of the Aurora to the westward near the horizon.

On the 14th of December several very bright meteors were observed to fall between the hours of five and six in the evening, at which time the wind freshened from the N.W. by N. in a very remarkable manner. On this occasion, as well as on the 12th of December, there

appeared to be an evident coincidence between the occurrence of the meteors and the changes of the weather at the time.

Particular attention was paid to the changes in the barometer during this winter, to which much encouragement was given by the excellence of the instruments with which we were now furnished. The times of register at sea had been three and nine, A.M. and P.M.; those hours having been recommended as the most proper for detecting any horary oscillations of the mercurial column. When we were fixed for the winter, and our attention could be more exclusively devoted to scientific objects, the register was extended to four and ten, and subsequently to five and eleven o’clock. The most rigid attention to the observation and correction of the column, during several months, discovered an oscillation amounting only to ten thousandth-parts of an inch. The times of the maximum and minimum altitude appear, however, decidedly to lean to four and ten o’clock, and to follow a law directly the reverse, as to time, of that found to obtain in temperate climates, the column being highest at four, and lowest at ten o’clock, both A.M. and P.M.

The barometer did not appear to indicate beforehand the changes of the weather with any degree of certainty. Indeed the remark that we had always before made, that alterations in the mercurial column more frequently accompany than precede the visible changes of weather in these regions, was equally true of our present experience; but on one or two occasions hard gales of considerable duration occurred without the barometer falling at all below the mean altitude of the column in these regions, or even rose steadily during the continuance of the gale.

During one week of almost constant blowing weather, and two days of very violent gales from the eastward, in the month of April, the barometer remained considerably above thirty inches the whole time. It is necessary for me here to remark that the unusual proportion of easterly winds registered in our journals during this winter must, in my opinion, be attributed to the local situation of our winter-quarters, which alone appears to me sufficient to account for the anomaly. The lands on each side of Port Bowen, running nearly east and west, and rising to a height of six to nine hundred feet above the sea, with deep and broad ravines intersecting the country in almost every direction, may be supposed to have had considerable influence on the direction of the wind. In confirmation of this supposition, indeed, it was usually noticed that the easterly winds were with us attended with clear weather, while the contrary obtained with almost every breeze from the west and north-west, thus reversing in this respect also the usual order of things. It was moreover observed that the clouds were frequently coming from the north-west, when the wind in Port Bowen was easterly. I must, however, except the gales we experienced from the eastward, which were probably strong enough to overcome any local deflection to which a light breeze would be subject; and indeed these were always accompanied with overcast weather and a high thermometer. After the middle of October the gales of wind were very few till towards the middle of April, when we experienced more blowing weather than during the whole winter.

CHAPTER IV.

Meteorological Phenomena continued—Re-equipment of the Ships—Several Journeys undertaken—Open Water in the Offing—Commence sawing a Canal to liberate the Ships—Disruption of the Ice—Departure from Port Bowen.

The height of the land about Port Bowen deprived us longer than usual of the sun’s presence above our horizon. Some of our gentlemen, indeed, who ascended a high hill for the purpose, caught a glimpse of him on the 2nd of February; on the 15th it became visible at the observatory, but at the ships not till the 22nd, after an absence of one hundred and twenty-one days. It is very long after the sun’s reappearance in these regions, however, that the effect of his rays, as to warmth, becomes perceptible; week passes after week with scarcely any rise in the thermometer except for an hour or two during the day; and it is at this period more than any other, perhaps, that the lengthened duration of a polar winter’s cold is most wearisome, and creates the most impatience. Towards the third week in March, thin flakes of snow lying upon black painted wood or metal, and exposed to the sun’s direct rays in a sheltered situation, readily melted. In the second week of April any very light covering of sand or ashes upon the snow close to the ships might be observed to make its way downward into holes; but a coat of sand laid upon the unsheltered ice, to the distance of about two-thirds of a mile, for dissolving a canal to hasten our liberation, produced no such sensible effect till the beginning of May. Even then the dissolution was very trifling till about the first week in June, when pools of water began to make their appearance, and not long

after this a small boat would have floated down it. On shore the effect is in general still more tardy, though some deception is there occasioned by the dissolution of the snow next the ground, while its upper surface is to all appearance undergoing little or no change. Thus a greater alteration is sometimes produced in the aspect of the land by a single warm day in an advanced part of the season than in many weeks preceding, in consequence of the last crust of snow being dissolved, leaving the ground at length entirely bare. We could now perceive the snow beginning to leave the stones from day to day as early as the last week in April. Towards the end of May a great deal of snow was dissolved daily, but owing to the porous nature of the ground, which absorbed it as fast as it was formed, it was not easy to procure water for drinking on shore, even as late as the 10th of June. In the ravines, however, it could be heard trickling under stones before that time, and about the 18th, many considerable streams were formed, and constantly running both night and day. After this, the thawing proceeded at an inconceivably rapid rate, the whole surface of the floes being covered with large pools of water rapidly increasing in size and depth.

We observed nothing extraordinary with respect to the sun’s light about the shortest day; but as early as the 20th of November Arcturus could very plainly be distinguished by the naked eye, when near the south meridian at noon. About the first week in April the reflection of light from the snow became so strong as to create inflammation in the eyes, and notwithstanding the usual precaution of wearing black crape veils during exposure, several cases of snow-blindness occurred shortly afterwards.

There are perhaps few things more difficult to obtain

than a comparative measure of the quantity of snow that falls at different places, owing to the facility with which the wind blows it off a smooth surface, such as a floe of level ice, and the collection occasioned by drift in consequence of the smallest obstruction. Thus, its mean depth at Port Bowen, measured in twenty different places on the smooth ice of the harbour, was three inches on the 5th of April, and on the 1st of May it had only increased to four and a half inches, while an immense bank, fourteen feet deep, had formed on one side of the Hecla, occasioned by the heavy drifts. The crystals were, as usual, extremely minute during the continuance of the cold weather, and more or less of these were always falling, even on the clearest days.

The animals seen at Port Bowen may now be briefly noticed. The principal of those seen during the winter were bears, of which we killed twelve, from October to June, being more than during all the other voyages taken together; and several others were seen. One of these animals was near proving fatal to a seaman of the Fury, who, having straggled from his companions, when at the top of a high hill saw a large bear coming towards him. Being unarmed, he prudently made off, taking off his boots to enable him to run the faster, but not so prudently precipitated himself over an almost perpendicular cliff, down which he was said to have rolled or fallen several hundred feet; here he was met by some of the people in so lacerated a condition as to be in a very dangerous state for some time after.

A she-bear, killed in the open water on our first arrival at Port Bowen, afforded a striking instance of maternal affection in her anxiety to save her two cubs. She might herself easily have escaped the boat, but would not

forsake her young, which she was actually “towing” off by allowing them to rest on her back, when the boat came near them. A second similar instance occurred in the spring, when two cubs having got down into a large crack in the ice their mother placed herself before them, so as to secure them from the attacks of our people, which she might easily have avoided herself.

This unusual supply of bear’s flesh was particularly serviceable as food for the Esquimaux dogs we had brought out, and which were always at work in a sledge; especially as, during the winter, our number was increased by the birth of six others of these useful animals.

One or two foxes (Canis Lagopus) were killed, and four caught in traps during the winter, weighing from four pounds and three-quarters to three pounds and three-quarters. The colour of one of these animals, which lived for some time on board the Fury and became tolerably tame, was nearly pure white till the month of May, when he shed his winter-coat and became of a dirty chocolate colour, with two or three light brown spots. Only three hares (Lepus Variabilis) were killed from October to June, weighing from six to eight pounds and three-quarters. Their fur was extremely thick, soft, and of the most beautiful whiteness imaginable. We saw no deer near Port Bowen at any season, neither were we visited by their enemies the wolves. A single ermine and a few mice (Mus Hudsonius) complete, I believe, our scanty list of quadrupeds at this desolate and unproductive place.

Of birds, we had a flock or two of ducks occasionally flying about the small lanes of open water in the offing, as late as the 3rd of October; but none from that time to the beginning of June, and then only a single pair was

occasionally seen. A very few grouse were met with also after our arrival at Port Bowen; a single specimen was obtained on the 23rd of December, and another on the 18th of February. They again made their appearance towards the end of March, and in less than a month about two hundred were killed; after which we scarcely saw another, for what reason we could not conjecture, except that they might possibly be on their way to the northward, and that the utter barrenness of the land about Port Bowen afforded no inducement for their remaining in our neighbourhood.

Lieutenant Ross, who paid great attention to ornithology, remarked that the grouse met with here are of three kinds, namely, the ptarmigan (Tetrao Lagopus), the rock-grouse, (Tetrao Rupestris), and the willow-partridge (Tetrao Albus). Of these only the two former were seen in the spring, and by far the greater number killed were of the first-mentioned species. They usually had in their maws the leaves of the Dryas Integrifolia, buds of the Saxifraga Oppositifolia, Salix Arctica, and Draba Alpina, the quantities being according to the order in which the plants have here been named. A few leaves also of the Polygonum Viviparum were found in one or two specimens. The snow-bunting, with its sprightly note, was, as usual, one of our earliest visitants in the spring; but these were few in number and remained only a short time. A very few sand-pipers were also seen, and now and then one or two glaucous, ivory, and kittiwake gulls. A pair of ravens appeared occasionally during the whole winter here, as at most of our former winter stations.

With a view to extend our geographical knowledge as much as our means permitted, three land journeys were undertaken as soon as the weather was sufficiently warm

for procuring any water. The first party, consisting of six men, under Captain Hoppner, were instructed to travel to the eastward, to endeavour to reach the sea in that direction and to discover the communication which probably exists there with Admiralty Inlet, so as to determine the extent of that portion of insular land on which Port Bowen is situated. They returned on the 14th, after a very fatiguing journey, and having with difficulty travelled a degree and three-quarters to the eastward of the ships, in latitude 73° 19′, from which position no appearance of the sea could be perceived. Captain Hoppner described the ravines as extremely difficult to pass, many of them being four or five hundred feet deep and very precipitous. These being numerous and running chiefly in a north and south direction, appearing to empty themselves into Jackson’s Inlet, preclude the possibility of performing a quick journey to the eastward. During the whole fortnight’s excursion scarcely a patch of vegetation could be seen. Indeed, the hills were so covered in most parts with soft and deep snow that a spot could seldom be found on which to pitch their tent. A few snow-buntings and some ivory gulls were all the animals they met with to enliven this most barren and desolate country; and nothing was observed in the geological character differing from that about Port Bowen.

In the bed of one of the ravines Captain Hoppner noticed some immense masses of rock, thirty or forty tons in weight, which had recently fallen from above, and he also passed over several avalanches of snow piled to a vast height across it.

The two other parties, consisting of four men each, under the respective commands of Lieutenants Sherer

and Ross, were directed to travel, the former to the southward, and the latter to the northward, along the coast of Prince Regent’s Inlet, for the purpose of surveying it accurately, and of obtaining observations for the longitude and variation at the stations formerly visited by us on the 7th and 15th of August, 1819. I was also very anxious to ascertain the state of the ice to the northward to enable me to form some judgment as to the probable time of our liberation.

These parties found the travelling along shore so good as to enable them not only to reach those spots, but to extend their journeys far beyond them. Lieutenant Ross returning on the 15th, brought the welcome intelligence of the sea being perfectly open and free from ice at the distance of twenty-two miles to the northward of Port Bowen, by which I concluded—what, indeed, had long before been a matter of probable conjecture,—that Barrow’s Strait was not permanently frozen during the winter. From the tops of the hills about Cape York, beyond which promontory Lieutenant Ross travelled, no appearance of ice could be distinguished. Innumerable ducks, chiefly of the king, eider, and long-tailed species, were flying about near the margin of the ice, besides dovekies, looms, and glaucous, kittiwake, and ivory gulls. Lieutenant Sherer returned to the ships on the evening of the 15th, having performed a rapid journey as far as 72¼°, and making an accurate survey of the whole coast to that distance. In the course of this journey a great many remains of Esquimaux habitations were seen, and these were much more numerous on the southern part of the coast. In a grave which Lieutenant Sherer opened, in order to form some idea whether the Esquimaux had lately been here, he found the body apparently quite

fresh; but as this might in a northern climate remain the case for a number of years, and as our board erected in 1819 was still standing untouched and in good order, it is certain these people had not been here since our former visit. Less numerous traces of the Esquimaux, and of older date, occur near Port Bowen and in Lieutenant Ross’s route along shore to the northward, and a few of the remains of habitations were those used as winter residences. I have since regretted that Lieutenant Sherer was not furnished with more provisions and a larger party to have enabled him to travel round Cape Kater, which is probably not far distant from some of the northern Esquimaux stations mentioned in my Journal of the preceding voyage.

Towards the end of June, the dovekies (Colymbus Grylle) were extremely numerous in the cracks of the ice at the entrance of Port Bowen, and as these were the only fresh supply of any consequence that we were able to procure at this unproductive place, we were glad to permit the men to go out occasionally with guns, after the ships were ready for sea, to obtain for their messes this wholesome change of diet; while such excursions also contributed essentially to their general health and cheerfulness. Many hundreds of these birds were thus obtained in the course of a few days. On the evening of the 6th of July, however, I was greatly shocked at being informed by Captain Hoppner that John Cotterell, a seaman of the Fury, had been found drowned in one of the cracks of the ice, by two other men belonging to the same party who had been with him but a few minutes before. We could never ascertain precisely in what manner this accident happened, but it was supposed that he must have overreached himself in stooping for a bird

that he had killed. His remains were committed to the earth on Sunday the 10th, with every solemnity which the occasion demanded, and our situation would allow; and a tomb of stones with a suitable inscription was afterwards erected over the grave.

In order to obtain oil for another winter’s consumption before the ships could be released from the ice, and our travelling parties having seen a number of black whales in the open water to the northward, two boats from each ship were, with considerable labour, transported four miles along shore in that direction, to be in readiness for killing a whale and boiling the oil on the beach, whenever the open water should approach sufficiently near. They took their station near a remarkable peninsular piece of land on the south side of the entrance to Jackson’s Inlet, which had on the former voyage been taken for an island. Notwithstanding these preparations, however, it was vexatious to find that on the 9th of July the water was still three miles distant from the boats, and at least seven from Port Bowen. On the 12th, the ice in our neighbourhood began to detach itself, and the boats under the command of Lieutenants Sherer and Ross being launched on the following day, succeeded almost immediately in killing a small whale of “five feet bone,” exactly answering our purpose. Almost at the same time, and as it turned out very opportunely, the ice at the mouth of our harbour detached itself at an old crack, and drifted off, leaving only about one mile and a quarter between us and the sea. Half of this distance being occupied by the gravelled canal, which was dissolved quite through the ice in many parts and had become very thin in all, every officer and man in both ships were set to work without delay to commence a fresh canal from the open water, to

communicate with the other. This work proved heavier than we expected, the ice being generally from five to eight feet, and in many places from ten to eleven, in thickness. It was continued, however, with the greatest cheerfulness and alacrity from seven in the morning till seven in the evening daily, the dinner being prepared on the ice and eaten under the lee of a studding sail erected as a tent.

On the afternoon of the 19th a very welcome stop was put to our operations by the separation of the floe entirely across the harbour, and about one-third from the ships to where we were at work. All hands being instantly recalled by signal, were on their return set to work to get the ships into the gravelled canal, and to saw away what still remained in it to prevent our warping to sea. This work, with only half an hour’s intermission for the men’s supper, was continued till half-past six the following morning, when we succeeded in getting clear. The weather being calm, two hours were occupied in towing the ships to sea, and thus the officers and men were employed at very laborious work for twenty-six hours, during which time there were, on one occasion, fifteen of them overboard at once; and, indeed, several individuals met with the same accident three times. It was impossible, however, to regret the necessity of these comparatively trifling exertions, especially as it was now evident that to have sawed our way out, without any canal, would have required at least a fortnight of heavy and fatiguing labour.

CHAPTER V.

Sail over towards the Western Coast of Prince Regent’s Inlet—Stopped by the Ice—Reach the Shore about Cape Seppings—Favourable Progress along the Land—Fresh and repeated Obstructions from Ice—Both Ships driven on Shore—Fury seriously damaged—Unsuccessful Search for a Harbour for heaving her down to repair.

July 20.—On standing out to sea, we sailed with a light southerly wind towards the western shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet, which it was my first wish to gain, on account of the evident advantage to be derived from coasting the southern part of that portion of land called in the chart “North Somerset,” as far as it might lead to the westward; which, from our former knowledge, we had reason to suppose it would do as far at least as the longitude of 95°, in the parallel of about 72°. After sailing about eight miles, we were stopped by a body of close ice lying between us and a space of open water beyond. By way of occupying the time in further examination of the state of the ice, we then bore up with a light northerly wind, and ran to the south-eastward to see if there was any clear water between the ice and the land in that direction; but found that there was no opening between them to the southward of the flat-topped hill laid down in the chart, and now called Mount Sherer. Indeed, I believe that at this time the ice had not yet detached itself from the land to the southward of that station. On standing back, we were shortly after enveloped in one of the thick fogs which had, for several weeks past, been observed almost daily hanging over some part of the sea in the offing, though we had scarcely experienced any in Port Bowen until the water became open at the mouth of the harbour.

On the clearing up of the fog on the 21st, we could perceive no opening of the ice leading towards the western land; nor any appearance of the smallest channel to the southward along the eastern shore. I was determined, therefore, to try at once a little farther to the northward, the present state of the ice appearing completely to accord with that observed in 1819, its breadth increasing as we advanced from Prince Leopold’s Islands to the southward. As, therefore, I felt confident of being able to push along the shore if we should once gain it, I was anxious to effect the latter object in any part rather than incur the risk of hampering the ships by a vain, or, at least, a doubtful attempt to force them through a body of close ice several miles wide, for the sake of a few leagues of southing, which would soon be regained by coasting.

Light winds detained us very much, but being at length favoured by a breeze, we carried all sail to the north-west, the ice very gradually leading us towards the Leopold Isles. Having arrived off the northernmost on the morning of the 22nd, it was vexatious, however curious, to observe the exact coincidence of the present position of the ice with that which it occupied a little later in the year 1819. The whole body of it seemed to cling to the western shore, as if held there by some strong attraction, forbidding, for the present, any access to it. We now stood off and on, in the hope that a southerly breeze, which had just sprung up, might serve to open us a channel. In the evening the wind gradually freshened, and before midnight had increased to a strong gale, which blew with considerable violence for ten hours, obliging us to haul off from the ice and to keep in smooth water under the eastern land until it abated; after which not a moment was lost in again standing over to the westward.

After running all night, with light and variable winds, through loose and scattered ice, we suddenly found ourselves, on the clearing up of a thick fog, through which we had been sailing on the morning of the 24th, within one-third of a mile of Cape Seppings, the land just appearing above the fog in time to save us from danger, the soundings being thirty-eight fathoms, on a rocky bottom. The Fury being apprised by guns of our situation, both ships were hauled off the land, and the fog soon after dispersing, we had the satisfaction to perceive that the late gale had blown the ice off the land, leaving us a fine navigable channel from one to two miles wide, as far as we could see from the mast-head along the shore. We were able to avail ourselves of this but slowly, however, in consequence of a light southerly breeze still blowing against us.

We had now an opportunity of discovering that a long neck of very low land runs out from the southernmost of the Leopold Islands, and another from the shore to the southward of Cape Clarence. These two had every appearance of joining, so as to make a peninsula, instead of an island, of that portion of land which, on account of our distance preventing our seeing the low beach, had in 1819 been considered under the latter character. It is, however, still somewhat doubtful, and the Leopold Isles, therefore, still retain their original designation on the chart. The land here, when closely viewed, assumes a very striking and magnificent character, the strata of limestone, which are numerous and quite horizontally disposed, being much more regular than on the eastern shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet, and retaining nearly their whole perpendicular height of six or seven hundred feet, close to the sea. The south-eastern promontory of the southernmost

island is particularly picturesque and beautiful, the heaps of loose débris lying here and there up and down the sides of the cliff giving it the appearance of some huge and impregnable fortress, with immense buttresses of masonry supporting the walls. Near Cape Seppings, and some distance beyond it to the southward, we noticed a narrow stratum of some very white substance, the nature of which we could not at this time conjecture. I may here remark that the whole of Barrow’s Strait, as far as we could see to the N.N.E. of the islands, was entirely free from ice; and from whatever circumstance it may proceed, I do not think that this part of the Polar Sea is at any season very much encumbered with it.

It was the general feeling, at this period, among us, that the voyage had but now commenced. The labours of a bad summer, and the tedium of a long winter, were forgotten in a moment when we found ourselves upon ground not hitherto explored, and with every apparent prospect before us of making as rapid a progress as the nature of this navigation will permit towards the final accomplishment of our object.

Early on the morning of the 25th, we passed the opening in the land delineated in the former chart of this coast, in latitude 73° 34′, which we now found to be a bay about three miles deep, but apparently open to the sea. I named it after my friend, Hastings Elwin, Esq., of Bristol, as a token of grateful esteem for that gentleman. The wind falling very light, so that the ships made no progress, I took the opportunity of landing in the fore-noon, accompanied by a party of the officers, and was soon after joined by Captain Hoppner. We found the formation to consist wholly of lime, and now discovered the nature of the narrow white stratum observed the day

before from the offing, and which proved to be gypsum, mostly of the earthy kind, and some of it of a very pure white. A part of the rock near our landing-place contained a quantity of it in the state of selenite in beautiful transparent laminæ of a large size. The abundance of gypsum hereabouts explained also the extreme whiteness of the water near the whole of this part of the coast, which had always been observed in approaching it, and which had at first excited unnecessary apprehensions as to the soundings along the shore. This colour is more particularly seen near the mouths of the streams, many of which are quite of a dirty milk colour, and tinge the sea to the distance of more than a mile, without any alteration in the depth, except a gradual diminution in going in. The vegetation in this place was, as usual, extremely scanty, though much more luxuriant than on any of the land near our winter quarters, and no animals were seen. The latitude of our landing-place was 73° 27′ 23″, the longitude by chronometers 90° 50′ 34.6″, and the variation of the magnetic needle 125° 34′ 42″ westerly. From half-past nine A.M. till a quarter past noon the tide fell two feet three inches; and as it was nearly stationary at the latter time, it was probably near low water.

A breeze enabling us again to make some progress, and an open channel still favouring us of nearly the same breadth as before, we passed during the night a second bay, about the same size as the other, and also appearing open to the sea; it lies in latitude (by account from the preceding and following noon) 73° 19′ 30″, and its width is one mile and a half. It was called Batty Bay, after my friend Captain Robert Batty, of the Grenadier Guards. We now perceived that the ice closed completely in with

the land a short distance beyond us, and having made all the way we could, were obliged to stand off and on during the day in a channel not three-quarters of a mile wide. This channel being still more contracted towards the evening, we were obliged to make fast to some grounded land ice upon the beach in four fathoms water, there to await some change in our favour. We here observed traces of our old friends the Esquimaux, there being several of their circles of stones, though not of recent date, close to the sea. We also found a more abundant vegetation than before, and several plants familiar to us on the former voyages, but not yet procured on this, were now added to our collections. The geological character of the land was nearly the same as before, but we found here some gypsum of the fibrous kind, occurring in a single stratum about an inch and a half wide. About a mile to the north of us was a curious cascade or spout of water, issuing from a chasm in the rock, and falling more than two hundred feet perpendicular. Our gentlemen, who visited the spot, described it as rendered the more picturesque by innumerable kittiwakes having their nests among the rocks, and constantly flying about the stream. The latitude was 73° 06′ 17″, the longitude by chronometers 91° 19′ 52.3″, the dip of the magnetic needle 88° 02.1′, and the variation 128° 23′ 17″ westerly.

The ice opening in the afternoon of the 27th, we cast off and run four or five miles with a northerly breeze. This wind, however, always had the effect of making the ice close the shore, while a southerly breeze as uniformly opened it, so that on this coast, as on several others that I have known, a contrary wind—however great the paradox may seem—proved, on the whole, the most favourable for making progress. This circumstance is simply to be

attributed to the greater abundance of open water in the parts we have left behind (in the present instance the open sea of Barrow’s Strait) than those towards which we are going. We were once more obliged to make fast, therefore, to some grounded ice close to the beach, rather than run any risk of hampering the ships, and rendering them unable to take advantage of a change in our favour.

A light southerly breeze on the morning of the 28th gradually cleared the shore, and a fresh wind from the N.W. then immediately succeeded. We instantly took advantage of this circumstance, and casting off at six A.M. ran eight or nine miles without obstruction, when we were stopped by the ice, which, in a closely packed and impenetrable body, stretched close into the shore as far as the eye could reach from the crow’s nest. Being anxious to gain every foot of distance that we could, and perceiving some grounded ice which appeared favourable for making fast to, just at a point where the clear water terminated, the ships were run to the utmost extent of it, and a boat prepared from each to examine the depth of water at the intended anchoring place. Just as I was about to leave the Hecla for that purpose, the ice was observed to be in rapid motion towards the shore. The Fury was immediately hauled in by some grounded masses, and placed to the best advantage; but the Hecla being more advanced was immediately beset in spite of every exertion, and after breaking two of the largest ice-anchors in endeavouring to heave in to the shore, was obliged to drift with the ice, several masses of which had fortunately interposed themselves between us and the land. The ice slackening around us a little in the evening, we were enabled, with considerable labour, to get to some grounded masses, where we lay much exposed, as the

Fury also did. In this situation, our latitude being 72° 51′ 51″, we saw a comparatively low point of land three or four leagues to the southward, which proved to be near that which terminated our view of this coast in 1819.

On the 29th, the ice being slack for a short distance, we shifted the Hecla half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing in the ships, a large fish had been observed to jump out of the water. In hopes of finding salmon here, we tried for some time with several hand-nets, but nothing was caught or seen. In this place were a number of the Esquimaux stone circles, apparently of very old date, being quite overgrown with grass, moss, and other plants. In the neighbourhood of these habitations the vegetation was much more luxuriant than anything of the kind we had seen before during this voyage. The state of this year’s plants was now very striking, compared with those of the last, and afforded strong evidence, if any had been wanting, of the difference between the two seasons. I was particularly struck with the appearance of some moss collected by Mr. Hooper, who pointed out to me upon the same specimen the last year’s miserable seeds just peeping above the leaves, while those of the present summer had already shot three-quarters of an inch beyond them. Another circumstance which we noticed about this time, and still more so as the season advanced, was the rapid progress which the warmth had already made in dissolving the last year’s snow, this being always easily known by its dingy colour, and its admixture with the soil. Of the past winter’s snow not a particle could be seen at the close of July on any part of

this coast. These facts, together with the beautiful weather we had enjoyed for many weeks past, all tended to show that we were now favoured with an unusually fine summer. We found in this place, in the dry bed of an old stream, innumerable fossils in the limestone, principally shells and madrepore. On a hill abreast of the Hecla, and at an elevation of not less than three or four hundred feet above the sea, one particular spot was discovered in which the same kind of shells first found in Barrow’s Strait in 1819 occurred in very great abundance and perfection, wholly detached from the lime in which for the most part they were found embedded in other places on this coast. Indeed, it was quite astonishing, in looking at the numberless fossil animal remains occurring in many of the stones, to consider the countless myriads of shell fish and marine insects which must once have existed on this shore. The cliffs next the sea, which here rise to a perpendicular height of between four and five hundred feet, were continually breaking down at this season, and adding, by falls of large masses of stone, to the slope of débris lying at their foot. The ships lay so close to the shore as to be almost within the range of some of these tumbling masses, there being at high water scarcely beach enough for a person to walk along the shore. The time of high water, near the opposition of the moon this night, was between half-past eleven and midnight, being nearly the same as at Port Bowen at full and change.

The ice opening for a mile and a half along shore on the 30th, we shifted the Hecla’s berth about that distance to the southward, chiefly to be enabled to see more distinctly round a point which before obstructed our view, though our situation, as regarded the security of the ship, was much altered for the worse. The Fury remained

where she was, there being no second berth even so good as the bad one where she was now lying. In the afternoon it blew a hard gale, with constant rain, from the northward, the clouds indicating an easterly wind in other parts. This wind, which was always the troublesome one to us, soon brought the ice closer and closer, till it pressed with very considerable violence on both ships, though the most upon the Fury, which lay in a very exposed situation. The Hecla received no damage but the breaking of two or three hawsers, and a part of her bulwark torn away by the strain upon them. In the course of the night we had reason to suppose, by the Fury’s heeling, that she was either on shore, or still heavily pressed by the ice from without. Early on the morning of the 31st, as soon as a communication could be effected, Captain Hoppner sent to inform me that the Fury had been forced on the ground, where she still lay; but that she would probably be hove off without much difficulty at high water, provided the external ice did not prevent it. I also learned from Captain Hoppner that a part of one of the propelling wheels had been destroyed, the chock through which its axis passed being forced in considerably, and the palm broken off one of the bower anchors. Most of this damage, however, was either of no very material importance, or could easily be repaired. A large party of hands from the Hecla being sent round to the Fury towards high water, she came off the ground with very little strain, so that, upon the whole, considering the situation in which the ships were lying, we thought ourselves fortunate in having incurred no very serious injury. The Fury was shifted a few yards into the best place that could be found, and the wind again blowing strong from the northward, the ice remained

close about us. A shift of wind to the southward in the afternoon at length began gradually to slacken it, but it was not till six A.M. on the 1st of August that there appeared a prospect of making any progress. There was, at this time, a great deal of water to the southward, but between us and the channel there lay one narrow and not very close stream of ice touching the shore. A shift of wind to the northward determined me at once to take advantage of it, as nothing but a free wind seemed requisite to enable us to reach this promising channel. The signal to that effect was immediately made, but while the sails were setting, the ice, which had at first been about three-quarters of a mile distant from us, was observed to be closing the shore. The ships were cast with all expedition, in hopes of gaining the broader channel before the ice had time to shut us up. So rapid, however, was the latter in this its sudden movement, that we had but just got the ships’ heads the right way, when the ice came bodily in upon us, being doubtless set in motion by a very sudden freshening of the wind almost to a gale in the course of a few minutes. The ships were now almost instantly beset, and in such a manner as to be literally helpless and unmanageable. In such cases, it must be confessed that the exertions made by heaving at hawsers or otherwise are of little more service than in the occupation they furnish to the men’s minds under circumstances of difficulty; for when the ice is fairly acting against the ship, ten times the strength and ingenuity could in reality avail nothing.

The sails were, however, kept set, and as the body of ice was setting to the southward withal, we went with it some little distance in that direction. The Hecla after thus driving, and now and then forcing her way through

the ice, in all about three-quarters of a mile, quite close to the shore, at length struck the ground forcibly several times in the space of a hundred yards, and being then brought up by it remained immovable, the depth of water under her keel abaft being sixteen feet, or about a foot less than she drew. The Fury continuing to drive was now irresistibly carried past us, and we escaped, only by a few feet, the damage invariably occasioned by ships coming in contact under such circumstances. She had, however, scarcely passed us a hundred yards when it was evident, by the ice pressing her in, as well as along the shore, that she must soon be stopped like the Hecla; and having gone about two hundred yards farther she was observed to receive a severe pressure from a large floe-piece forcing her directly against a grounded mass of ice upon the beach. After setting to the southward for an hour or two longer the ice became stationary, no open water being anywhere visible from the mast-head, and the pressure on the ships remaining undiminished during the day. Just as I had ascertained the utter impossibility of moving the Hecla a single foot, and that she must lie quite aground fore and aft as soon as the tide fell, I received a note from Captain Hoppner informing me that the Fury had been so severely “nipped” and strained as to leak a good deal, apparently about four inches an hour; that she was still heavily pressed both upon the ground and against the large mass of ice within her; that the rudder was at present very awkwardly situated; and that one boat had been much damaged. As the tide fell the Fury’s stern, which was aground, was lifted several feet, and the Hecla at low water having sewed five feet forward and two abaft, we presented altogether no very pleasing or comfortable spectacle. However, about high

water, the ice very opportunely slacking, the Hecla was hove off with great ease, and warped to a floe in the offing to which we made fast at midnight. The Fury was not long after us in coming off the ground, when I was in hopes of finding that any twist or strain, by which her leaks might have been occasioned, would, in some measure, have closed when she was relieved from pressure and once more fairly afloat. My disappointment and mortification, therefore, may in some measure be imagined, at being informed by telegraph, about two A.M. on the 2nd, that the water was gaining on two pumps, and that a part of the doubling had floated up. The Hecla having in the mean time been carried two or three miles to the southward, by the ice which was once more driving in that direction, I directed Captain Hoppner by signal to endeavour to reach the best security in-shore which the present slackness of the ice might permit, until it was possible for the Hecla to rejoin him. Presently after perceiving from the mast-head something like a small harbour nearly abreast of us, every effort was made to get once more towards the shore. In this the ice happily favoured us, and after making sail and one or two tacks we got in with the land, when I left the ship in a boat to sound the place and search for shelter. I soon had the mortification to find that the harbour which had appeared to present itself so opportunely, had not more than six or seven feet water in any part of it, the whole of its defences being composed of the stones and soil washed down by a stream which here emptied itself into the sea. From this place, indeed, where the land gradually became much lower in advancing to the southward, the whole nature of the soundings entirely altered, the water gradually shoaling in approaching the beach, so that the ships

could scarcely come nearer, in most parts, than a quarter of a mile. At this distance the whole shore was more or less lined with grounded masses of ice; but after examining the soundings within more than twenty of them, in the space of about a mile, I could only find two that would allow the ships to float at low water, and that by some care in placing and keeping them there. Having fixed a flag on each berg, the usual signal for the ships taking their stations, I rowed on board the Fury, and found four pumps constantly going to keep the ship free, and Captain Hoppner, his officers and men, almost exhausted with the incessant labour of the last eight-and-forty hours. The instant the ships were made fast, Captain Hoppner and myself set out in a boat to survey the shore still farther south, there being a narrow lane of water about a mile in that direction; for it had now become too evident, however unwilling we might have been at first to admit the conclusion, that the Fury could proceed no farther without repairs, and that the nature of those repairs would in all probability involve the disagreeable, I may say the ruinous, necessity of heaving the ship down. After rowing about three-quarters of a mile we considered ourselves fortunate in arriving at a bolder part of the beach, where three grounded masses of ice, having from three to four fathoms water at low tide within them, were so disposed as to afford, with the assistance of art, something like shelter. Wild and insecure as, under other circumstances, such a place would have been thought for the purpose of heaving a ship down, we had no alternative, and therefore as little occasion as we had time for deliberation. Returning to the ships, we were setting the sails in order to run to the appointed place, when the ice closed in and prevented our

moving, and in a short time there was once more no open water to be seen. We were, therefore, under the necessity of remaining in our present berths, where the smallest external pressure must inevitably force us ashore, neither ship having more than two feet of water to spare. One watch of the Hecla’s crew were sent round to assist at the Fury’s pumps, which required one-third of her ship’s company to be constantly employed at them.

The ice coming in with considerable violence on the night of the 2nd, once more forced the Fury on shore, so that at low water she sewed two feet and a half. Nothing but the number and strength of the Hecla’s hawsers prevented her sharing the same fate, for the pressure was just as much as seven of these of six inches and two stream-cables would bear. The Fury floated in the morning, and was enabled to haul off a little, but there was no opening of the ice to allow us to move to our intended station. The more leisure we obtained to consider the state of the Fury, the more apparent became the absolute, however unfortunate, necessity of heaving her down. Four pumps were required to be at work without intermission to keep her free, and this in perfectly smooth water, showing that she was, in fact, so materially injured as to be very far from seaworthy. One-third of her working men were constantly employed, as before remarked, in this laborious operation, and some of their hands had become so sore from the constant friction of the ropes, that they could hardly handle them any longer without the use of mittens, assisted by the unlaying of the ropes to make them soft. When, in addition to these circumstances, the wet state of the decks and the little room left, as well as the reduced strength for working the ship or heaving at hawsers among the ice, be

considered, I believe that every seaman will admit the impracticability of pursuing this critical navigation till the Fury had been examined and repaired. As, therefore, not a moment could be lost we took advantage of a small lane of water deep enough for boats, which kept open within the grounded masses along the shore, to convey to the Hecla some of the Fury’s dry provisions, and to land a quantity of heavy ironwork and other stores not perishable; for the moment this measure was determined on I was anxious, almost at any risk, to commence the lightening of the ship as far as our present insecurity and our distance from the shore would permit.

The wind blowing fresh from the northward, which always increased our difficulties on this coast, the ice pressed so violently upon the ships as almost to force them adrift during the night, employing our people, now sufficiently harassed by their work during the day, for two or three hours in still further increasing our security by additional hawsers. We continued landing stores from the Fury on the 4th, and at night a bower cable was passed round one of the grounded masses alongside of her; for if either ship had once got adrift, it is difficult to say what might have been the consequence.

At two A.M. on the 5th, the ice began to slacken near the ships, and as soon as a boat could be rowed along shore to the southward, I set out, accompanied by a second from the Fury, for the purpose of examining the state of our intended harbour since the recent pressure, and to endeavour to prepare for the reception of the ships by clearing out the loose ice. On my arrival there, the distance being about a mile, I found that one of the three bergs had shifted its place so materially by the late movements of the ice, as not only to alter the disposition of these masses,

on which our whole dependence rested, very much for the worse, but also to destroy all confidence in their stability upon the ground. Landing upon one of the bergs to show the appointed signal for the ships to come, I perceived, about half a mile beyond us to the southward, a low point forming a little bay, with a great deal of heavy grounded ice lying off it. I immediately rowed to this, in hopes of finding something like a harbour for our purpose, but on my arrival there, had once more the mortification to find that there were not above six feet of water at low tide in any part of it, and within the grounded ice not more than twelve. Having assured myself that no security or shelter was here to be found, I immediately returned to the former place, which the Hecla was just reaching. The Fury was detained some time by a quantity of loose ice which had wedged itself in, in such a manner as to leave her no room to move outwards; but she arrived about seven o’clock, when both ships were made fast in the best berths we could find, but they were still excluded from their intended place by the quantity of ice which had fixed itself there. Within twenty minutes after our arrival, the whole body of ice again came in, entirely closing up the shore, so that our moving proved most opportune.

CHAPTER VI.

Formation of a Basin for heaving the Fury down—Landing of the Fury’s Stores, and other preparations—The Ships secured within the Basin—Impediments from the pressure of the Ice—Fury hove down—Securities of the Basin destroyed by a Gale of Wind—Preparations to tow the Fury out—Hecla re-equipped, and obliged to put to Sea—Fury again driven on Shore—Rejoin the Fury; and find it necessary finally to abandon her.

As there was now no longer room for floating the ice out of our proposed basin, all hands were immediately employed in preparing the intended securities against the incursions of the ice. These consisted of anchors carried to the beach, having bower-cables attached to them, passing quite round the grounded masses, and thus enclosing a small space of just sufficient size to admit both ships. The cables we proposed floating by means of the two hand-masts and some empty casks lashed to them as buoys, with the intention of thus making them receive the pressure of the ice a foot or two below the surface of the water. By uncommon exertions on the part of the officers and men, this laborious work was completed before night as far as was practicable until the loose ice should set out; and all the tents were set up on the beach for the reception of the Fury’s stores.

The ice remaining quite close on the 6th, every individual in both ships, with the exception of those at the pumps, was employed in landing provisions from the Fury, together with the spars, boats, and everything from off her upper deck. The ice coming in, in the afternoon, with a degree of pressure which usually attended a northerly wind on this coast, twisted the Fury’s rudder so forcibly against a mass of ice lying under her

stern that it was for some hours in great danger of being damaged, and was indeed only saved by the efforts of Captain Hoppner and his officers, who, without breaking off the men from their other occupations, themselves worked at the ice-saw. On the following day, the ice remaining as before, the work was continued without intermission, and a great quantity of things landed. The two carpenters (Messrs. Pulfer and Fiddis) took the Fury’s boats in hand themselves, their men being required as part of our physical strength in clearing the ship. The armourer was also set to work on the beach in forging bolts for the martingales of the outriggers. In short, every living creature among us was somehow or other employed, not even excepting our dogs, which were set to drag up the stores on the beach; so that our little dockyard soon exhibited the most animated scene imaginable. The quickest method of landing casks and other things not too weighty, was that adopted by Captain Hoppner, and consisted of a hawser secured to the ship’s main mast-head, and set up as tight as possible to the anchor on the beach; the casks being hooked to a block traversing on this as a jack-stay, were made to run down it with great velocity. By this means more than two were got on shore for every one landed by the boats, the latter, however, being constantly employed in addition. The Fury was thus so much lightened in the course of the day that two pumps were now nearly sufficient to keep her free, and this number continued requisite until she was hove down. Her spirit-room was now entirely clear, and, on examination, the water was found to be rushing in through two or three holes that happened to be in the ceiling, and which were immediately plugged up. Indeed; it was now very evident that nothing but

the tightness of the Fury’s diagonal ceiling had so long kept her afloat, and that any ship not thus fortified within could not possibly have been kept free by the pumps.

At night, just as the people were going to rest, the ice began to move to the southward, and soon after came in towards the shore, again endangering the Fury’s rudder, and pressing her over on her side to so alarming a degree, as to warn us that it would not be safe to lighten her much more in her present insecure situation. One of our bergs also shifted its position by this pressure, so as to weaken our confidence in the pier-heads of our intended basin; and a long “tongue” of one of them forcing itself under the Hecla’s forefoot, while the drift-ice was also pressing her forcibly from astern, she once more sewed three or four feet forward at low water, and continued to do so, notwithstanding repeated endeavours to haul her off, for four successive tides the ice remaining so close and so much doubled under the ship, as to render it impossible to move her a single inch. Notwithstanding the state of the ice, however, we did not remain idle on the 8th, all hands being employed in unrigging the Fury, and landing all her spars, sails, booms, boats, and other top-weight.

The ice still continuing very close on the 9th, all hands were employed in attempting, by saws and axes, to clear the Hecla, which still grounded on the tongue of ice every tide. After four hours’ labour, they succeeded in making four or five feet of room astern, when the ship suddenly slid down off the tongue with considerable force, and became once more afloat. We then got on shore the Hecla’s cables and hawsers for the accommodation of the Fury’s men in our tiers during the heaving

down, struck our top-masts which would be required as shores and outriggers, and, in short, continued to occupy every individual in some preparation or other. These being entirely completed at an early hour in the afternoon, we ventured to go on with the landing of the coals and provisions from the Fury, preferring to run the risk which would thus be incurred, to the loss of even a few hours in the accomplishment of our present object. As it very opportunely happened, however, the external ice slackened to the distance of about a hundred yards outside of us on the morning of the 10th, enabling us, by a most tedious and laborious operation, to clear the ice out of our basin piece by piece. The difficulty of this apparently simple process consisted in the heavy pressure having repeatedly doubled one mass under another—a position in which it requires great power to move them—and also by the corners locking in with the sides of the bergs. Our next business was to tighten the cables sufficiently by means of purchases, and to finish the floating of them in the manner and for the purpose before described. After this had been completed, the ships had only a few feet in length, and nothing in breadth to spare; but we had now great hopes of going on with our work with increased confidence and security. The Fury, which was placed inside, had something less than eighteen feet at low water; the Hecla lay in four fathoms, the bottom being strewed with large and small fragments of limestone.

While thus employed in securing the ships, the smoothness of the water enabled us to see in some degree the nature of the Fury’s damage; and it may be conceived how much pain it occasioned us plainly to discover that both the stern-post and forefoot were broken and turned

up on one side with the pressure. We also could perceive as far as we were able to see along the main-keel, that it was much torn, and we had therefore reason to conclude that the damage would altogether prove very serious. We also discovered that several feet of the Hecla’s false keel were torn away abreast of the fore-chains, in consequence of her grounding forward so frequently.

The ships being now as well secured as our means permitted from the immediate danger of ice, the clearing of the Fury went on during the 11th with increased confidence, though greater alacrity was impossible, for nothing could exceed the spirit and zealous activity of every individual, and as things had turned out, the ice had not obliged us to wait a moment, except at the actual times of its pressure. Being favoured with fine weather, we continued our work very quickly, so that on the 12th every cask was landed and also the powder; and the spare sails and clothing put on board the Hecla. On the 13th we found that a mass of heavy ice, which had been aground within the Fury, had now floated off alongside of her at high water, still further contracting our already narrow basin, and leaving the ship no room for turning round. At the next high water, therefore, we got a purchase on it and hove it out of the way, so that at night it drifted off altogether. The coals and preserved meats were the principal things now remaining on board the Fury, and these we continued landing by every method we could devise as the most expeditious. The tide rose so considerably at night, new moon occurring within an hour of high water, that we were much afraid of our bergs floating: they remained firm, however, even though the ice came in with so much force as to break one of our hand-masts,

a fir spar of twelve inches diameter. As the high tides and the lightening of the Fury now gave us sufficient depth of water for unshipping the rudders, we did so, and laid them upon the small berg astern of us, for fear of their being damaged by any pressure of the ice.

Early on the morning of the 14th, the ice slackening a little in our neighbourhood, we took advantage of it, though the people were much fagged, to tighten the cables, which had stretched and yielded considerably by the late pressure. It was well that we did so; for in the course of this day we were several times interrupted in our work by the ice coming with a tremendous strain on the north cables, the wind blowing strong from the N.N.W., and the whole “pack” outside of us setting rapidly to the southward. Indeed, notwithstanding the recent tightening and readjustment of the cables, the bight was pressed in so much as to force the Fury against the berg astern of her twice in the course of the day. Mr. Waller, who was in the hold the second time that this occurred, reported that the coals about the keelson were moved by it, imparting the sensation of a part of the ship’s bottom falling down; and one of the men at work there was so strongly impressed with that belief that he thought it high time to make a spring for the hatchway. From this circumstance it seemed more than probable that the main keel had received some serious damage near the middle of the ship.

From this trial of the efficacy of our means of security, it was plain that the Fury could not possibly be hove down under circumstances of such frequent and imminent risk; I therefore directed a fourth anchor, with two additional cables, to be carried out, with the hope

of breaking some of the force of the ice by its offering a more oblique resistance than the other, and thus by degrees turning the direction of the pressure from the ships. We had scarcely completed this new defence, when the largest floe we had seen since leaving Port Bowen came sweeping along the shore, having a motion to the southward of not less than a mile and a half an hour; and a projecting point of it just grazing our outer berg, threatened to overturn it, and would certainly have dislodged it from its situation but for the cable recently attached to it. A second similar occurrence took place with a smaller mass of ice about midnight, and near the top of an unusually high spring tide, which seemed ready to float away every security from us. For three hours about the time of this high water, our situation was a most critical one, for had the bergs, or indeed any one of them, been carried away or broken, both ships must inevitably have been driven on shore by the very next mass of ice that should come in. Happily, however, they did not suffer any further material disturbance, and the main body keeping at a short distance from the land until the tide had fallen, the bergs seemed to be once more firmly resting on the ground. The only mischief, therefore, occasioned by this disturbance was the slackening of our cables by the alteration in the positions of the several grounded masses, and the consequent necessity of employing more time, which nothing but absolute necessity could induce us to bestow in adjusting and tightening the whole of them afresh.

The wind veering to the W.N.W. on the morning of the 15th, and still continuing to blow strong, the ice was forced three or four miles off the land in the course of

a few hours, leaving us a quiet day for continuing our work, but exciting no very pleasing sensations when we considered what progress we might have been making had we been at liberty to pursue our object. The land was, indeed, so clear of ice to the southward that Dr. Neill, who walked a considerable distance in that direction, could see nothing but an open channel in-shore to the utmost extent of his view. We took advantage of this open water to send the launch for the Fury’s ironwork left at the former station; for though the few men thus employed could very ill be spared, we were obliged to arrange everything with reference to the ultimate saving of time; and it would have occupied both ships’ companies more than a whole day to carry the things round by land.

The Fury being completely cleared at an early hour on the 16th, we were all busily employed in “winding” the ship, and in preparing the outriggers, shores, purchases, and additional rigging. Though we purposely selected the time of high water for turning the ship round, we had scarcely a foot of space to spare for doing it, and indeed, as it was, her forefoot touched the ground, and loosened the broken part of the wood so much as to enable us to pull it up with ropes, when we found the fragments to consist of the whole of the “gripe” and most of the “cutwater.” The strong breeze continuing, and the sea rising as the open water increased in extent, our bergs were sadly washed and wasted; every hour producing a sensible and serious diminution in their bulk. As, however, the main body of ice still kept off, we were in hopes, now that our preparations were so near completed, we should have been enabled in a few hours to see the extent of the damage, and repair it sufficiently to

allow us to proceed. In the evening we received the Fury’s crew on board the Hecla, every arrangement and regulation having been previously made for their personal comfort, and for the preservation of cleanliness, ventilation, and dry warmth throughout the ship. The officers of the Fury, by their own choice, pitched a tent on shore for messing and sleeping in, as our accommodation for two sets of officers was necessarily confined. On the 17th, when every preparation was completed, the cables were found again so slack, by the wasting of the bergs in consequence of the continued sea, and possibly also in part by the masses having moved somewhat in-shore, that we were obliged to occupy several hours in putting them to rights, as we should soon require all our strength at the purchases. One berg had also, at the last low water, fallen over on its side in consequence of its substance being undermined by the sea, and the cable surrounding it was thus forced so low under water as no longer to afford protection from the ice should it again come in. In tightening the cables, we found it to have the effect of bringing the bergs in towards the shore, still further contracting our narrow basin; but anything was better than suffering them to go adrift. This work being finished at ten P.M. the people were allowed three hours’ rest only, it being necessary to heave the ship down at or near high water, as there was not sufficient depth to allow her to take her distance at any other time of tide. Every preparation being made, at three A.M. on the 18th, we began to heave her down on the larboard side, but when the purchases were nearly a-block, we found that the strops under the Hecla’a bottom, as well as some of the Fury’s shorefasts, had stretched or yielded so much, that they could not bring

the keel out of water within three or four feet. We immediately eased her up again, and readjusted everything as requisite, hauling her farther in-shore than before by keeping a considerable heel upon her, so as to make less depth of water necessary; and we were then in the act of once more heaving her down, when a snowstorm came on and blew with such violence off the land, as to raise a considerable sea. The ships had now so much motion as to strain the gear very much, and even to make the lower masts of the Fury bend in spite of the shores: we were, therefore, most unwillingly compelled to desist until the sea should go down, keeping everything ready to recommence the instant we could possibly do so with safety. The officers and men were now literally so harassed and fatigued as to be scarcely capable of further exertion without some rest; and on this and one or two other occasions, I noticed more than a single instance of stupor amounting to a certain degree of failure in intellect, rendering the individual so affected quite unable at first to comprehend the meaning of an order, though still as willing as ever to obey it. It was therefore perhaps a fortunate necessity which produced the intermission of labour which the strength of every individual seemed to require.

The gale rather increasing than otherwise during the whole day and night of the 18th, had on the following morning, when the wind and sea still continued unabated, so destroyed the bergs on which our sole dependence was placed, that they no longer remained aground at low water; the cables had again become slack about them, and the basin we had taken so much pains in forming had now lost all its defences, at least during a portion of every tide. It will be plain, too, if I have succeeded in

giving a distinct description of our situation, that, independently of the security of the ships, there was now nothing left to seaward by which the Hecla could be held out in that direction while heaving the Fury down, so that our preparations in this way were no longer available. After a night of most anxious consideration and consultation with Captain Hoppner, who was now my messmate in the Hecla, it appeared but too plain, that, should the ice again come in, neither ship could any longer be secured from driving on shore. It was therefore determined instantly to prepare the Hecla for sea, making her thoroughly effective in every respect; so that we might at least push her out into comparative safety among the ice, when it closed again, taking every person on board her, securing the Fury in the best manner we could, and returning to her the instant we were able to do so, to endeavour to get her out, and to carry her to some place of security for heaving down. If, after the Hecla was ready, time should still be allowed us, it was proposed immediately to put into the Fury all that was requisite, or at least as much as she could safely carry, and towing her out into the ice, to try the effect of “foddering” the leaks by sails under those parts of her keel which we knew to be damaged, until some more effectual means could be resorted to.

Having communicated to the assembled officers and ships’ companies my views and intentions, and moreover given them to understand that I hoped to see the Hecla’s top-gallant-yards across before we slept, we commenced our work; and such was the hearty goodwill and indefatigable energy with which it was carried on, that by midnight the whole was accomplished, and a bower-anchor and cable carried out in the offing, for the double

purpose of hauling out the Hecla when requisite, and as some security to the Fury, if we were obliged to leave her. The people were once more quite exhausted by these exertions, especially those belonging to the Fury, who had never thoroughly recovered their first fatigues. The ice being barely in sight, we were enabled to enjoy seven hours of undisturbed rest; but the wind becoming light, and afterwards shifting to the N.N.E., we had reason to expect the ice would soon close the shore, and were, therefore, most anxious to continue our work.

On the 20th, therefore, the reloading of the Fury commenced with recruited strength and spirits, such articles being in the first place selected for putting on board as were essentially requisite for her re-equipment; for it was my full determination, could we succeed in completing this, not to wait even for rigging a topmast, or getting a lower yard up, in the event of the ice coming in, but to tow her out among the ice, and there put everything sufficiently to rights for carrying her to some place of security. At the same time, the end of the sea-cable was taken on board the Fury, by way of offering some resistance to the ice, which was now more plainly seen, though still about five miles distant, A few hands were also spared, consisting chiefly of two or three convalescents, and some of the officers, to thrum a sail for putting under the Fury’s keel; for we were very anxious to relieve the men at the pumps, which constantly required the labour of eight to twelve hands to keep her free. In the course of the day, several heavy masses of ice came drifting by with a breeze from the N.E., which is here about two points upon the land, and made a considerable swell. One mass came in contact with our bergs, which, though only held by the cables, brought it up in time to

prevent mischief. By a long and hard day’s labour, the people not going to rest till two o’clock on the morning of the 21st, we got about fifty tons’ weight of coals and provisions on board the Fury, which, in case of necessity, we considered sufficient to give her stability. While we were thus employed, the ice, though evidently inclined to come in, did not approach us much; and it may be conceived with what anxiety we longed to be allowed one more day’s labour, on which the ultimate saving of the ship might almost be considered as depending. Having hauled the ships out a little from the shore and prepared the Hecla for casting by a spring at a moment’s notice, all the people except those at the pumps were sent to rest, which, however, they had not enjoyed for two hours, when at four A.M. on the 21st, another heavy mass coming violently in contact with the bergs and cables, threatened to sweep away every remaining security. Our situation, with this additional strain, the mass which had disturbed us fixing itself upon the weather-cable, and an increasing wind and swell setting considerably on the shore, became more and more precarious; and indeed, under circumstances as critical as can well be imagined, nothing but the urgency and importance of the object we had in view—that of saving the Fury if she was to be saved—could have prevented my making sail, and keeping the Hecla under way till matters mended. More hawsers were run out, however, and enabled us still to hold on; and after six hours of disturbed rest, all hands were again set to work to get the Fury’s anchors, cables, rudder, and spars on board, these things being absolutely necessary for her equipment, should we be able to get her out. At two P.M. the crews were called on board to dinner, which they had not finished when several not very large masses

of ice drove along the shore near us at a quick rate, and two or three successively coming in violent contact either with the Hecla or the bergs to which she was attached, convinced me that very little additional pressure would tear everything away, and drive both ships on shore. I saw that the moment had arrived when the Hecla could no longer be kept in her present situation with the smallest chance of safety, and therefore immediately got under sail, dispatching Captain Hoppner with every individual, except a few for working the ship, to continue getting the things on board the Fury, while the Hecla stood off and on. It was a quarter-past three P.M. when we cast off, the wind then blowing fresh from the north-east, or about two points upon the land, which caused some surf on the beach. Captain Hoppner had scarcely been an hour on board the Fury, and was busily engaged in getting the anchors and cables on board, when we observed some large pieces of not very heavy ice closing in with the land near her; and at twenty minutes past four P.M., being an hour and five minutes after the Hecla had cast off, I was informed by signal that the Fury was on shore. Making a tack in-shore, but not being able, even under a press of canvas, to get very near her, owing to a strong southerly current which prevailed within a mile or two of the land, I perceived that she had been apparently driven up the beach by two or three of the grounded masses forcing her onwards before them, and these, as well as the ship, seemed now so firmly aground as entirely to block her in on the seaward side. As the navigating of the Hecla with only ten men on board required constant attention and care, I could not at this time with propriety leave the ship to go on board the Fury. This, however, I the less regretted as Captain

Hoppner was thoroughly acquainted with all my views and intentions, and I felt confident that, under his direction, nothing would be left undone to endeavour to save the ship. I, therefore, directed him by telegraph, “if he thought nothing could be done at present, to return on board with all hands until the wind changed;” for this alone, as far as I could see the state of the Fury, seemed to offer the smallest chance of clearing the shore, so as to enable us to proceed with our work, or to attempt hauling the ship off the ground. About seven P.M. Captain Hoppner returned to the Hecla, accompanied by all hands, except an officer with a party at the pumps, reporting to me that the Fury had been forced aground by the ice pressing on the masses lying near her, and bringing home, if not breaking, the seaward anchor, so that the ship was soon found to have sewed from two to three feet fore and aft.

With the ship thus situated, and masses of heavy ice constantly coming in, it was Captain Hoppner’s decided opinion, as well as that of Lieutenants Austin and Ross, that to have laid out another anchor to seaward would have only been to expose it to the same damage as there was reason to suppose had been incurred with the other, without the most distant hope of doing any service; especially as the ship had been driven on shore, by a most unfortunate coincidence, just as the tide was beginning to fall. Indeed, in the present state of the Fury, nothing short of chopping and sawing up a part of the ice under her stern could by any possibility have effected her release, even if she had been already afloat. Under such circumstances, hopeless as for the time every seaman will admit them to have been, Captain Hoppner judiciously determined to return for the present, as directed by my

telegraphic communication; but being anxious to keep the ship free from water as long as possible, he left an officer and a small party of men to continue working at the pumps so long as a communication could be kept up between the Hecla and the shore. Every moment, however, decreased the practicability of doing this; and finding, soon after Captain Hoppner’s return, that the current swept the Hecla a long way to the southward while hoisting up the boats, and that more ice was drifting in towards the shore, I was under the painful necessity of recalling the party at the pumps, rather than incur the risk, now an inevitable one, of parting company with them altogether. Accordingly Mr. Bird, with the last of the people, came on board at eight o’clock in the evening, having left eighteen inches of water in the well, and four pumps being requisite to keep her free. In three hours after Mr. Bird’s return, more than half a mile of closely-packed ice intervened between the Fury and the open water in which we were beating, and before the morning this barrier had increased to four or five miles in breadth.

We carried a press of canvas all night, with a fresh breeze from the north, to enable us to keep abreast of the Fury, which, on account of the strong southerly current, we could only do by beating at some distance from the land. The breadth of the ice in-shore continued increasing during the day, but we could see no end to the water in which we were beating, either to the southward or eastward. Advantage was taken of the little leisure now allowed us, to let the people mend and wash their clothes, which they had scarcely had a moment to do for the last three weeks. We also completed the thrumming of a second sail for putting under the Fury’s keel whenever we should be enabled to haul her off the shore. It fell

quite calm in the evening, when the breadth of the ice in-shore had increased to six or seven miles. We did not during the day perceive any current setting to the southward, but in the course of the night we were drifted four or five leagues to the south-westward, in which situation we had a distinct view of a large extent of land, which had before been seen for the first time by some of our gentlemen who walked from where the Fury lay. This land trends very much to the westward, a little beyond the Fury Point, the name by which I have distinguished that headland near which we had attempted to heave the Fury down, and which is very near the southern part of this coast, seen in the year 1819. It then sweeps round into a large bay, formed by a long, low beach several miles in extent, afterwards joining higher land, and running in a south-easterly direction to a point which terminated our view of it in that quarter, and which bore from us S. 58° W. distant six or seven leagues. This headland I named Cape Garry, after my worthy friend Nicholas Garry, Esq., one of the most active members of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and a gentleman most warmly interested in everything connected with northern discovery. The whole of the bay (which I named after my much esteemed friend, Francis Cresswell, Esq.), as well as the land to the southward, was free from ice for several miles, and to the southward and eastward scarcely any was to be seen, while a dark water-sky indicated a perfectly navigable sea in that direction; but between us and the Fury there was a compact body of ice eight or nine miles in breadth. Had we now been at liberty to take advantage of the favourable prospect before us, I have little doubt we should without much difficulty have made considerable progress.

A southerly breeze enabling us to regain our northing, we ran along the margin of the ice, but were led so much to the eastward by it, that we could approach the ship no nearer than before during the whole day. She appeared to us at this distance to have a much greater heel than when the people left her, which made us still more anxious to get near her. A south-west wind gave us hopes of the ice setting off from the land, but it produced no good effect during the whole of the 24th. We, therefore, beat again to the southward to see if we could manage to get in with the land anywhere about the shores of the bay; but this was now impracticable, the ice being once more closely packed there. We could only wait, therefore, in patience, for some alteration in our favour. The latitude at noon was 72° 34′ 57″, making our distance from the Fury twelve miles, which by the morning of the 25th had increased to at least five leagues, the ice continuing to “pack” between us and the shore. The wind, however, now gradually drew round to the westward, giving us hopes of a change, and we continued to ply about the margin of the ice, in constant readiness for taking advantage of any opening that might occur. It favoured us so much by streaming off in the course of the day, that by seven P.M. we had nearly reached a channel of clear water, which kept open for seven or eight miles from the land. Being impatient to obtain a sight of the Fury, and the wind becoming light, Captain Hoppner and myself left the Hecla in two boats, and reached the ship at half-past nine, or about three-quarters of an hour before high water, being the most favourable time of tide for arriving to examine her condition.

We found her heeling so much outward, that her main channels were within a foot of the water; and the large

floe-piece, which was still alongside of her, seemed alone to support her below water, and to prevent her falling over still more considerably. The ship had been forced much further up the beach than before, and she had now in her bilge above nine feet of water, which reached higher than the lower-deck beams. On looking down the stern-post, which, seen against the light-coloured ground, and in shoal water, was now very distinctly visible, we found that she had pushed the stones at the bottom up before her, and that the broken keel, stern-post, and deadwood had, by the recent pressure, been more damaged and turned up than before. She appeared principally to hang upon the ground abreast of the gangway, where, at high water, the depth was eleven feet alongside her keel; forward and aft from thirteen to sixteen feet; so that at low tide, allowing the usual fall of five or six feet, she would be lying in a depth of from five to ten feet only. The first hour’s inspection of the Fury’s condition too plainly assured me that exposed as she was, and forcibly pressed up upon an open and stony beach, her holds full of water, and the damage of her hull to all appearance and in all probability more considerable than before, without any adequate means of hauling her off to seaward, or securing her from the further incursions of the ice, every endeavour of ours to get her off, or if got off, to float her to any known place of safety, would be at once utterly hopeless in itself, and productive of extreme risk to our remaining ship.

Being anxious, however, in a case of so much importance, to avail myself of the judgment and experience of others, I directed Captain Hoppner, in conjunction with Lieutenants Austin and Sherer, and Mr. Pulfer, carpenter, being the officers who accompanied me to the Fury, to

hold a survey upon her, and to report their opinions to me. And to prevent the possibility of the officers receiving any bias from my own opinion, the order was given to them the moment we arrived on board the Fury.

Captain Hoppner and the other officers, after spending several hours in attentively examining every part of the ship, both within and without, and maturely weighing all the circumstances of her situation, gave it as their opinion that it would be quite impracticable to make her seaworthy, even if she could be hauled off, which would first require the water to be got out of the ship, and the holds to be once more entirely cleared. Mr. Pulfer, the carpenter of the Fury, considered that it would occupy five days to clear the ship of water; that if she were got off, all the pumps would not be sufficient to keep her free, in consequence of the additional damage she seemed to have sustained; and that, if even hove down, twenty days’ work, with the means we possessed, would be required for making her seaworthy. Captain Hoppner and the other officers were, therefore, of opinion that an absolute necessity existed for abandoning the Fury. My own opinion being thus confirmed as to the utter hopelessness of saving her, and feeling more strongly than ever the responsibility which attached to me of preserving the Hecla unhurt, it was with extreme pain and regret that I made the signal for the Fury’s officers and men to be sent for their clothes, most of which had been put on shore with the stores.

The Hecla’s bower-anchor, which had been placed on the beach, was sent on board as soon as the people came on shore; but her remaining cable was too much entangled with the grounded ice to be disengaged without great loss of time. Having allowed the officers and men

an hour for packing up their clothes, and what else belonging to them the water in the ship had not covered, the Fury’s boats were hauled up on the beach, and at two A.M. I left her, and was followed by Captain Hoppner, Lieutenant Austin, and the last of the people in half an hour after.

The whole of the Fury’s stores were of necessity left either on board her or on shore, every spare corner that we could find in the Hecla being now absolutely required for the accommodation of our double complement of officers and men, whose cleanliness and health could only be maintained by keeping the decks as clear and well ventilated as our limited space would permit. The spot where the Fury was left is in latitude 72° 42′ 30″, the longitude by chronometers is 91° 50′ 05″, the dip of the magnetic needle 88° 19′ 22″, and the variation 129° 25′ westerly.

When the accident first happened to the Fury, I confidently expected to have been able to repair her damages in good time to take advantage of a large remaining part of the navigable season in the prosecution of the voyage; and while the clearing of the ship was going on with so much alacrity, and the repairs seemed to be within the reach of our means and resources, I still flattered myself with the same hope. But as soon as the gales began to destroy, with a rapidity of which we had before no conception, our sole defence from the incursions of the ice, as well as the only trustworthy means we before possessed of holding the Hecla out for heaving the Fury down, I confess that the prospect of the necessity then likely to arise for removing her to some other station, was sufficient to shake every reasonable expectation I had hitherto cherished of the ultimate accomplishment of our object. Those

expectations were now at an end. With a twelvemonth’s provisions for both ships’ companies, extending our resources only to the autumn of the following year, it would have been folly to hope for final success, considering the small progress we had already made, the uncertain nature of this navigation, and the advanced period of the present season. I was, therefore, reduced to the only remaining conclusion that it was my duty, under all the circumstances of the case, to return to England, in compliance with the plain tenor of my instructions. As soon as the boats were hoisted up, therefore, and the anchor stowed, the ship’s head was put to the north-eastward, with a light air off the land, in order to gain an offing before the ice should again set in-shore.

CHAPTER VII.

Some Remarks upon the loss of the Fury—And on the Natural History, &c., of the Coast of North Somerset—Arrive at Neill’s Harbour—Death of John Page—Leave Neill’s Harbour—Recross the Ice in Baffin’s Bay—Heavy Gales—Aurora Borealis—Temperature of the Sea—Arrival in England.

The accident which had now befallen the Fury, and which, when its fatal result was finally ascertained, at once put an end to every prospect of success in the main object of this voyage, is not an event which will excite surprise in the minds of those who are either personally acquainted with the true nature of this precarious navigation, or have had patience to follow me through the tedious and monotonous detail of our operations during seven successive summers. To any persons thus qualified to judge it will be plain that an occurrence of this nature was at all times rather to be expected than otherwise,

and that the only real cause for wonder has been our long exemption from such a catastrophe. I can confidently affirm, and I trust that on such an occasion I may be permitted to make the remark, that the mere safety of the ships has never been more than a secondary object in the conduct of the expeditions under my command. To push forward while there was any open water to enable us to do so has uniformly been our first endeavour; it has not been until the channel has actually terminated that we have ever been accustomed to look for a place of shelter, to which the ships were then conducted with all possible despatch; and I may safely venture to predict that no ship acting otherwise will ever accomplish the Northwest Passage. On numerous occasions, which will easily recur to the memory of those I have had the honour to command, the ships might easily have been placed among the ice and left to drift with it in comparative, if not absolute, security, when the holding them on has been preferred, though attended with hourly and imminent peril. This was precisely the case on the present occasion; the ships might certainly have been pushed into the ice a day or two, or even a week beforehand, and thus preserved from all risk of being forced on shore; but where they would have been drifted, and when they would have been again disengaged from the ice, or at liberty to take advantage of the occasional openings in-shore (by which alone the navigation of these seas is to be performed with any degree of certainty), I believe it impossible for any one to form the most distant idea. Such, then, being the necessity for constant and unavoidable risk, it cannot reasonably excite surprise that on a single occasion out of so many in which the same accident seemed, as it were, impending, it should actually have taken place.

The ice we met with after leaving Port Bowen, previously to the Fury’s disaster, and for some days after, I consider to have been much the lightest as well as the most broken we have ever had to contend with. During the time we were shut up at our last station near the Fury, one or two floes of very large dimensions drifted past us; and these were of that heavy “hummocky” kind which we saw off Cape Kater in the beginning of August, 1819. On the whole, however, Mr. Allison and myself had constant occasion to remark the total absence of floes, and the unusual lightness of the other ice. We thought, indeed, that this latter circumstance might account for its being almost incessantly in motion on this coast; for heavy ice, when once it is pressed home upon the shore, and has ceased to move, generally remains quiet, until a change of wind or tide makes it slacken. But with lighter ice, the frequent breaking and doubling of the parts which sustain the strain, whenever any increase of pressure takes place, will set the whole body once more in motion till the space is again filled up. This was so often the case while our ships lay in the most exposed situations on this unsheltered coast, that we were never relieved for a moment from the apprehension of some new and increased pressure.

The summer of 1825 was, beyond all doubt, the warmest and most favourable we had experienced since that of 1818. Not more than two or three days occurred, during the months of July and August, in which that heavy fall of snow took place which so commonly converts the aspect of Nature in these regions, in a single hour, from the cheerfulness of summer into the dreariness of winter. Indeed, we experienced very little either of snow, rain, or fog; vegetation, wherever the soil allowed any to spring

up, was extremely luxuriant and forward; a great deal of the old snow which had laid on the ground during the last season was rapidly dissolving even early in August; and every appearance of Nature exhibited a striking contrast with the last summer, while it seemed evidently to furnish an extraordinary compensation for its rigour and inclemency.

We have scarcely ever visited a coast on which so little of animal life occurs. For days together, only one or two seals, a single sea-horse, and now and then a flock of ducks, were seen. I have already mentioned, however, as an exception to this scarcity of animals, the numberless kittiwakes which were flying about the remarkable spout of water; and we were one day visited, at the place where the Fury was left, by hundreds of white whales sporting about in the shoal water close to the beach. No black whales were ever seen on this coast. Two reindeer were observed by the gentlemen who extended their walks inland; but this was the only summer in which we did not procure a single pound of venison. Indeed, the whole of our supplies obtained in this way during the voyage, including fish, flesh, and fowl, did not exceed twenty pounds per man.

During the time that we were made fast upon this coast, in which situation alone observations on current can be satisfactorily made, it is certain that the ice was setting to the southward, and sometimes at a rapid rate, full seven days out of every ten on an average. Had I now witnessed this for the first time in these seas, I should probably have concluded that there was a constant southerly set at this season; but the experience we had before obtained of that superficial current which every breeze of wind creates in a sea encumbered with ice,

coupled with the fact that while this set was noticed we had an almost continual prevalence of northerly winds, inclines me to believe that it was to be attributed—chiefly at least—to this circumstance, especially as, on one or two occasions, with rather a light breeze from the southward, the ice did set slowly in the opposite direction. It is not by a few unconnected observations that a question of this kind is to be settled, as the facts noticed during our detention near the west end of Melville Island in 1820 will abundantly testify; every light air of wind producing, in half an hour’s time, an extraordinary change of current setting at an incredible rate along the land.

The existence of these variable and irregular currents adds, of course, very much to the difficulty of determining the true direction of the flood-tide, the latter being generally much the weaker of the two, and therefore either wholly counteracted by the current, or simply tending to accelerate it. On this account, though I attended very carefully to the subject of the tides, I cannot pretend to say for certain from what direction the flood-tide comes on this coast; the impression on my mind, however, has been, upon the whole, in favour of its flowing from the southward. The time of high water on the full and change days of the moon is from half-past eleven to twelve o’clock, being nearly the same as at Port Bowen; but the tides are so irregular at times, that in the space of three days the retardation will occasionally not amount to an hour. I observed, however, that, as the days of full and change, or of the moon’s quarter approached, the irregularity was corrected, and the time rectified, by some tide of extraordinary duration. The mean rise and fall was about six feet.

The weather continuing nearly calm during the 26th, and the ice keeping at the distance of several miles from the land, gave us an opportunity of clearing our decks, and stowing the things belonging to the Fury’s crew more comfortably for their accommodation and convenience. I now felt more sensibly than ever the necessity I have elsewhere pointed out, of both ships employed on this kind of service being of the same size, equipped in the same manner, and alike efficient in every respect. The way in which we had been able to apply every article for assisting to heave the Fury down, without the smallest doubt or selection as to size or strength, proved an excellent practical example of the value of being thus able, at a moment’s warning, to double the means and resources of either ship in case of necessity. In fact, by this arrangement, nothing but a harbour to secure the ships was wanted, to have completed the whole operation in as effectual a manner as in a dockyard; for not a shore, or outrigger, or any other precaution was omitted, that is usually attended to on such occasions, and all as good and effective as could anywhere have been desired. The advantages were now scarcely less conspicuous in the accommodation of the officers and men, who in a short time became little less comfortable than in their own ship; whereas, in a smaller vessel, comfort, to say nothing of health, would have been quite out of the question. Having thus experienced the incalculable benefit of the establishment composing this expedition, I am anxious to repeat my conviction of the advantages that will always be found to attend it in the equipment of any two ships intended for discovery.

A little snow, which had fallen in the course of the last two or three days, now remained upon the land,

lightly powdering the higher parts, especially those having a northern aspect, and creating a much more wintry sensation than the large broad patches or drifts, which, on all tolerably high land in these regions, remain undissolved during the whole of each successive summer. With the exception of a few such patches here and there, the whole of this coast was now free from snow before the middle of August.

A breeze from the northward freshening up strong on the 27th, we stretched over to the eastern shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet, and this with scarcely any obstruction from ice. We could, indeed, scarcely believe this the same sea which, but a few weeks before, had been loaded with one impenetrable body of closely packed ice from shore to shore, and as far as the eye could discern to the southward. We found this land rather more covered with the newly fallen snow than that to the westward; but there was no ice, except the grounded masses, anywhere along the shore. Having a great deal of heavy work to do in the re-stowage of the holds which could not well be accomplished at sea, and also a quantity of water to fill for our increased complement, I determined to take advantage of our fetching the entrance of Neill’s Harbour to put in here, in order to prepare the ship completely for crossing the Atlantic. I was desirous also of ascertaining the depth of water in this place, which was wanting to complete Lieutenant Sherer’s survey of it. At one P.M., therefore, after communicating to the officers and ships’ companies my intention to return to England, I left the ship, accompanied by Lieutenant Sherer in a second boat, to obtain the necessary soundings for conducting the ship to the anchorage, and to lay down a buoy in the proper berth. Finding the harbour an

extremely convenient one for our purpose, we worked the ship in, and at four P.M. anchored in thirteen fathoms, but afterwards shifted out to eighteen on a bottom of soft mud. Almost at the moment of our dropping the anchor, John Page, seaman of the Fury, departed this life; he had for several months been affected with a scrofulous disorder, and had been gradually sinking for some time.

The funeral of the deceased took place after Divine service had been performed on the 28th; the body being followed to the grave by a procession of all the officers, seamen, and marines of both ships, and every solemnity observed which the occasion demanded. The grave is situated near the beach close to the anchorage, and a board was placed at the head as a substitute for a tombstone, having on it a copper-plate with the usual inscription.

This duty being performed, we immediately commenced landing the casks and filling water; but notwithstanding the large streams which, a short time before, had been running into the harbour, we could hardly obtain enough for our purpose by sinking a cask with holes in it. I have no doubt that this rapid dissolution of all the snow on land so high as this, was the result of an unusually warm summer. This work, together with the entire re-stowage of all the holds, occupied the whole of the 29th and 30th; during which time Lieutenant Sherer was employed in completing the survey of the harbour, more especially the soundings, which the presence of ice had before prevented. These arrangements had just been completed when the north-easterly wind died away, and was succeeded on the morning of the 31st by a light air from the north-west. As soon as we had sent to ascertain

that the sea was clear of ice on the outside, and that the breeze which blew in the harbour was the true one, we weighed and stood out, and before noon had cleared the shoals at the entrance.

Neill’s Harbour, the only one on this eastern coast of Prince Regent’s Inlet, except Port Bowen, to which it is far superior, corresponds with one of the apparent openings seen at a distance in 1819, and marked on the chart of that voyage as a “valley or bay.” We found it not merely a convenient place of shelter but a most excellent harbour, with sufficient space for a great number of ships, and holding-ground of the best quality, consisting of a tenacious mud of a greenish colour, in which the flukes of an anchor are entirely embedded. A great deal of the anchoring ground is entirely land-locked, and some shoal points which narrow the entrance would serve to break off any heavy sea from the eastward. The depth of water in most parts is greater than could be wished, but several good berths are pointed out in the accompanying survey made by Lieutenant Sherer. The beach on the west side is a fine bold one, with four fathoms within twenty yards of low water mark, and consists of small pebbles of limestone. The formation of the rocks about the harbour is so similar to that of Port Bowen that no description of them is necessary. The harbour may best be known by its latitude; by the very remarkable flat-topped hill eight miles south of it, which I have named after Lieutenant Sherer who observed its latitude; by the high cliffs on the south side of the entrance, and the comparative low land on the north. The high land is the more peculiar, as consisting of that very regular horizontal stratification appearing to be supported by buttresses, which characterises a large portion of the

western shore of Prince Regent’s Inlet, but is not seen on any part of this coast so well marked as here. It is a remarkable circumstance, and such as, I believe, very rarely occurs, that from the point of this land forming the entrance of the harbour to the southward, and where the cliffs rise at once to a perpendicular height of not less than five or six hundred feet, a shoal stretches off to the distance of one-third of a mile, having from three to eight fathoms upon it. I have reason to think indeed that there is not more than from ten to fourteen fathoms anywhere across between this and the low point on the other side, thus forming a sort of bar, though the depth of water is much more than sufficient for any ship to pass over. The latitude of Neill’s Harbour is 73° 09′ 08″; the longitude by chronometers 89° 01′ 20″.8; the dip of the magnetic needle 88° 08′.25, and the variation 118° 48′ westerly.

I have been thus particular in describing Neill’s Harbour, because I am of opinion that at no very distant period the whalers may find it of service. The western coast of Baffin’s Bay, now an abundant fishery, will probably, like most others, fail in a few years; for the whales will always in the course of time leave a place where they continue year after year to be molested. In that case, Prince Regent’s Inlet will undoubtedly become a rendezvous for our ships, as well on account of the numerous fish there, as the facility with which any ship, having once crossed the ice in Baffin’s Bay, is sure to reach it during the months of July and August. We saw nine or ten black whales the evening of our arrival in Neill’s Harbour; these, like most observed hereabouts, and I believe on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay generally, were somewhat below the middle size.

Finding the wind at north-west in Prince Regent’s Inlet, we were barely able to lie along the eastern coast. As the breeze freshened in the course of the day, a great deal of loose ice in extensive streams and patches came drifting down from the Leopold Islands, occasioning us some trouble in picking our way to the northward. By carrying a press of sail, however, we were enabled, towards night, to get into clearer water, and by four A.M. on the 1st of September, having beat to windward of a compact body of ice which had fixed itself on the lee shore about Cape York, we soon came into a perfectly open sea in Barrow’s Strait, and were enabled to bear away to the eastward. We now considered ourselves fortunate in having got out of harbour when we did, as the ice would probably have filled up every inlet on that shore in a few hours after we left it.

The wind heading us from the eastward on the 2nd, with fog and wet weather, obliged us to stretch across the Sound, in doing which we had occasion to remark the more than usual number of icebergs that occurred in this place, which was abreast of Navy Board Inlet. Many of these were large and of the long flat kind, which appear to me to be peculiar to the western coast of Baffin’s Bay. I have no doubt that this more than usual quantity of icebergs in Sir James Lancaster’s Sound was to be attributed to the extraordinary prevalence and strength of the easterly winds during this summer, which would drive them from the eastern parts of Baffin’s Bay. They now occurred in the proportion of at least four for one that we had ever before observed here.

Being again favoured with a fair wind, we now stretched to the eastward, still in an open sea; and our curiosity was particularly excited to see the present

situation of the ice in the middle of Baffin’s Bay, and to compare it with that in 1824. This comparison we were enabled to make the more fairly, because the season at which we might expect to come to it coincided, within three or four days, with that in which we left it the preceding year. The temperature of the sea-water now increased to 38°, soon after leaving the Sound, where it had generally been from 33° to 35°, whereas at the same season last year it rose no higher than 32° anywhere in the neighbourhood, and remained even so high as that only for a very short time. This circumstance seemed to indicate the total absence of ice from those parts of the sea which had last autumn been wholly covered by it. Accordingly, on the 5th, being thirty miles beyond the spot in which we had before contended with numerous difficulties from ice, not a piece was to be seen, except one or two solitary bergs; and it was not till the following day, in latitude 72° 45′, and longitude 64° 44′, or about one hundred and twenty-seven miles to the eastward of where we made our escape on the 9th of September, 1824, that we fell in with a body of ice so loose and open as scarcely to oblige us to alter our course for it. At three P.M. on the 7th, being in latitude 72° 30′, and longitude 60° 05′, and having, in the course of eighty miles that we had run through it, only made a single tack, we came to the margin of the ice, and got into an open sea on its eastern side. In the whole course of this distance the ice was so much spread, that it would not, if at all closely “packed,” have occupied one-third of the same space. There were at this time thirty-nine bergs in sight, and some of them certainly not less than two hundred feet in height.

The narrowness and openness of the ice at this season,

between the parallels of 73° and 74°, when compared with its extent and closeness about the same time the preceding year, was a decided confirmation, if any were wanting, that the summer of 1824 was extremely unfavourable for penetrating to the westward about the usual latitudes. How it had proved elsewhere we could not of course conjecture, till, on the 8th, being in latitude 71° 55′, longitude 60° 30′, and close to the margin of the ice, we fell in with the Alfred, Ellison, and Elizabeth, whalers of Hull, all running to the northward, even at this season, to look for whales. From them we learned that the Ellison was one of the two ships we saw, when beset in the “pack” on the 18th July, 1824; and that they were then, as we had conjectured, on their return from the northward, in consequence of having failed in effecting a passage to the westward. The master of the Ellison informed us that, after continuing their course along the margin of the ice to the southward, they at length passed through it to the western land without any difficulty, in the latitude of 68° to 69°. Many other ships had also crossed about the same parallels, even in three or four days; but none, it seemed, had succeeded in doing so, as usual, to the northward. Thus it plainly appeared (and I need not hesitate to confess that to me the information was satisfactory) that our bad success in pushing across the ice in Baffin’s Bay in 1824, had been caused by circumstances neither to be foreseen nor controlled; namely, by a particular position of the ice, which, according to the best information I have been able to collect, has never before occurred during the only six years that it has been customary for the whalers to cross this ice at all, and which, therefore, in all probability, will seldom occur again.

If we seek for a cause for the ice thus hanging with more than ordinary tenacity to the northward, the comparative coldness of the season indicated by our meteorological observations may perhaps be considered sufficient to furnish it. For as the annual clearing of the northern parts of Baffin’s Bay depends entirely on the time of the disruption of the ice, and the rate at which it is afterwards drifted to the southward by the excess of northerly winds, any circumstance tending to retain it in the bays and inlets to a later period than usual, and subsequently to hold it together in large floes, which drive more slowly than smaller masses, would undoubtedly produce the effect in question. There is, at all events, one useful practical inference to be drawn from what has been stated, which is that, though perhaps in a considerable majority of years a northern latitude may prove the most favourable for crossing in, yet seasons will sometimes intervene in which it will be a matter of great uncertainty whereabouts to make the attempt with the best hope of success.

As the whaling ships were not homeward bound, having as yet had indifferent success in the fishery, I did not consider it necessary to send despatches by them. After an hour’s communication with them, and obtaining such information of a public nature as could not fail to be highly interesting to us, we made sail to the southward: while we observed them lying-to for some time after, probably to consult respecting the unwelcome information with which we had furnished them as to the whales, not one of which, by some extraordinary chance, we had seen since leaving Neill’s Harbour. As this circumstance was entirely new to us, it seems not unlikely that the whales are already beginning to shift their ground, in

consequence of the increased attacks which have been made upon them of late years in that neighbourhood.

On the 10th we had an easterly wind, which, gradually freshening to a gale, drew up the Strait from the southward, and blew strong for twenty-four hours from that quarter. In the course of the night, and while lying-to under the storm-sails, an iceberg was discovered, by its white appearance, under our lee. The main-topsail being thrown aback we were enabled to drop clear of this immense body, which would have been a dangerous neighbour in a heavy seaway. The wind moderated on the 11th, but on the following day another gale came on, which for nine or ten hours blew in most tremendous gusts from the same quarter, and raised a heavy sea. We happily came near no ice during the night, or it would scarcely have been possible to keep the ship clear of it. It abated after daylight on the 13th, but continued to blow an ordinary gale for twelve hours longer. It was remarkable that the weather was extremely clear overhead during the whole of this last gale, which is very unusual here with a southerly wind. Being favoured with a northerly breeze on the 15th we began to make some way to the southward. From nine A.M. to one P.M. a change of temperature in the sea water took place from 37° to 33°. This circumstance seemed to indicate our approach to some ice projecting to the eastward beyond the straight and regular margin of the “pack,” which was at this time not in sight. The indication proved correct and useful; for after passing several loose pieces of ice during the night, on the morning of the 15th, just at daybreak, we came to a considerable body of it, through which we continued to run to the southward. We were now in latitude 68° 56′, and in longitude 58° 27′, in which

situation a great many bergs were in sight, and apparently aground. We ran through this ice, which was very heavy, but loose and much broken up, the whole day; when having sailed fifty-three miles S.S.E., and appearances being the same as ever, we hauled to the E.S.E., to endeavour to get clear before dark, which we were just enabled to effect after a run of thirty miles in that direction, and then bore up to the southward. After this we saw but one iceberg and one heavy loose piece previous to our clearing Davis’s Strait.

On the 17th at noon we had passed to the southward of the Arctic Circle, and from this latitude to that of about 58° we had favourable winds and weather; but we remarked on this, as on several other occasions during this season, that a northerly breeze, contrary to ordinary observation, brought more moisture with it than any other. In the course of this run we also observed more drift-wood than we had ever done before, which I thought might possibly be owing to the very great prevalence of easterly winds this season driving it further from the coast of Greenland than usual. We saw very large flocks of kittiwakes, some of the whales called finners, and, as we supposed, a few also of the black kind, together with multitudes of porpoises.

On the morning of the 24th, notwithstanding the continuance of a favourable breeze, we met, in the latitude of 58½°, so heavy a swell from the north-eastward as to make the ship labour violently for four-and-twenty hours. The northerly wind then dying away was succeeded by a light air from the eastward with constant rain. A calm then followed for several hours, causing the ship to roll heavily in the hollow of the sea. On the morning of the 25th we had again an easterly wind,

which in a few hours reduced us to the close-reefed topsails and reefed courses. At eight P.M. it freshened to a gale, which brought us under the main-topsail and storm-staysails, and at seven the following morning it increased to a gale of such violence from N.E.b.N. as does not very often occur at sea in these latitudes. The gusts were at times so tremendous as to set the sea quite in a foam, and threatened to tear the sails out of the bolt-ropes. It abated a little for four hours in the evening, but from nine P.M. till two the following morning blew with as great violence as before, with a high sea, and very heavy rain; constituting altogether as inclement weather as can well be conceived for about eighteen hours. The wind gradually drew to the westward, with dry weather, after the gale began to abate, and at six A.M. we were enabled to bear up and run to the eastward with a strong gale at north-west.

The indications of the barometer previous to and during this gale deserve to be noticed, because it is only about Cape Farewell that, in coming from the northward down Davis’s Strait, this instrument begins to speak a language which has ever been intelligible to us as a weather-glass. As it is also certain that a “stormy spirit” resides in the neighbourhood of this headland, no less than in that of more famed ones to the south, it may become a matter of no small practical utility for ships passing it, especially in the autumn, to attend to the oscillations of the mercurial column. It is with this impression alone that I have detailed the otherwise uninteresting circumstances of the inclement weather we now experienced here; and which was accompanied by the following indications of the barometer. On the 24th, notwithstanding the change of wind from north to east,

the mercury rose from 29.51 on that morning, to 29.72 at three A.M. the following day, but fell to 29.39 by nine P.M., with the strong but not violent breeze then blowing. After this it continued to descend very gradually, and had reached 28.84, which was its minimum, at three P.M. on the 26th, after which it continued to blow tremendously hard for eleven or twelve hours, the mercury uniformly though slowly ascending to 28.95 during that interval, and afterwards to 29.73 as the weather became moderate and fine in the course of the three following days.

After this gale the atmosphere seemed to be quite cleared, and we enjoyed a week of such remarkably fine weather as seldom occurs at this season of the year. We had then a succession of strong southerly winds, but were enabled to continue our progress to the eastward, so as to make Mould Head, towards the north-west end of the Orkney Islands, at daylight on the 10th of October; and the wind becoming more westerly we rounded North Ronaldsha Island at noon, and then shaped a course for Buchaness.

In running down Davis’s Strait, as well as in crossing the Atlantic, we saw on this passage as well as in all our former autumnal ones, a good deal of the Aurora Borealis. It first began to display itself on the 15th of September, about the latitude of 69½°, appearing in the (true) south-east quarter as a bright luminous patch five or six degrees above the horizon, almost stationary for two or three hours together, but frequently altering its intensity, and occasionally sending up vivid streamers towards the zenith. It appeared in the same manner on several subsequent nights in the south-west, west, and east quarters of the heavens; and on the 20th a bright arch of it passed across the zenith from S.E. to N.W., appearing to be very

close to the ship, and affording so strong a light as to throw the shadow of objects on the deck. The next brilliant display, however, of this beautiful phenomenon which we now witnessed, and which far surpassed anything of the kind observed at Port Bowen, occurred on the night of the 24th of September, in latitude 58½°, longitude 44½°. It first appeared in a (true) east direction, in detached masses like luminous clouds of yellow or sulphur-coloured light, about three degrees above the horizon. When this appearance had continued for about an hour, it began at nine P.M. to spread upwards, and gradually extended itself into a narrow band of light passing through the zenith and again downwards to the western horizon. Soon after this the streams of light seemed no longer to emanate from the eastward, but from a fixed point about one degree above the horizon on a true west bearing. From this point, as from the narrow point of a funnel, streams of light, resembling brightly illuminated vapour or smoke, appeared to be incessantly issuing, increasing in breadth as they proceeded, and darting with inconceivable velocity, such as the eye could scarcely keep pace with, upwards towards the zenith, and in the same easterly direction which the former arch had taken. The sky immediately under the spot from which the light issued appeared, by a deception very common in this phenomenon, to be covered with a dark cloud, whose outline the imagination might at times convert into that of the summit of a mountain, from which the light proceeded like the flames of a volcano. The streams of light as they were projected upwards did not consist of continuous vertical columns or streamers, but almost entirely of separate, though constantly renewed masses, which seemed to roll themselves

laterally onward with a sort of undulating motion, constituting what I have understood to be meant by that modification of the Aurora called the “merry dancers,” which is seen in beautiful perfection at the Shetland Islands. The general colour of the light was yellow, but an orange and a greenish tinge were at times very distinctly perceptible, the intensity of the light and colours being always the greatest when occupying the smallest space. Thus the lateral margins of the band or arch seemed at times to roll themselves inwards so as to approach each other, and in this case the light just at the edges became much more vivid than the rest. The intensity of light during the brightest part of the phenomenon, which continued three-quarters of an hour, could scarcely be inferior to that of the moon when full.

We once more remarked in crossing the Atlantic that the Aurora often gave a great deal of light at night, even when the sky was entirely overcast, and it was on that account impossible to say from what part of the heavens the light proceeded, though it was often fully equal to that afforded by the moon in her quarters. This was rendered particularly striking on the night of the 5th of October, in consequence of the frequent and almost instantaneous changes which took place in this way, the weather being rather dark and gloomy, but the sky at times so brightly illuminated, almost in an instant, as to give quite as much light as the full moon similarly clouded, and enabling one distinctly to recognise persons from one end of the ship to the other. We did not on any one occasion perceive the compasses to be affected by the Aurora Borealis.

As we approached the Orkneys, I demanded from the officers, in compliance with my instructions from my

Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, all the logs, journals, drawings, and charts, which had been made during the voyage. After rounding the north end of the Orkneys on the 10th of October, we were on the 12th met by a strong southerly wind when off Peterhead. I, therefore, immediately landed (for the second time) at that place; and, setting off without delay for London, arrived at the Admiralty on the 16th.

Notwithstanding the ill success which had attended our late efforts, it may in some degree be imagined what gratification I experienced at this time in seeing the whole of the Hecla’s crew, and also those of the Fury (with the two exceptions already mentioned), return to their native country in as good health as when they left it eighteen months before. The Hecla arrived at Sheerness on the 20th of October, where she was detained for a few days for the purpose of Captain Hoppner, his officers, and ship’s company, being put upon their trial (according to the customary and indispensable rule in such cases) for the loss of the Fury; when, it is scarcely necessary to add, they received an honourable acquittal. The Hecla then proceeded to Woolwich, and was paid off on the 21st of November.

ACCOUNT OF THE ESQUIMAUX OF MELVILLE PENINSULA AND THE ADJOINING ISLANDS,

More particularly of Winter Island and Igloolik.

The number of individuals composing the tribe of Esquimaux assembled at Winter Island and Igloolik was two hundred and nineteen, of whom sixty-nine were men, seventy-seven women, and seventy-three children. Two or three of the men, from their appearance and infirmities, as well as from the age of their children, must have been near seventy; the rest were from twenty to about fifty. The majority of the women were comparatively young, or from twenty to five-and-thirty, and three or four only seemed to have reached sixty. Of the children, about one-third were under four years old, and the rest from that age upwards to sixteen or seventeen. Out of one hundred and fifty-five individuals who passed the winter at Igloolik, we knew of eighteen deaths and of only nine births.

The stature of these people is much below that of Europeans in general. One man, who was unusually tall, measured five feet ten inches, and the shortest was only four feet eleven inches and a half. Of twenty individuals of each sex measured at Igloolik, the range was:—

Men.—From 5 ft. 10 in. to 4 ft. 11 in. The average height, 5 ft. 5⅓ in.

Women.—From 5 ft. 3½ in. to 4 ft. 8¾ in. The average height, 5 ft. ½in.

The women, however, generally appear shorter than they really are, both from the unwieldy nature of their clothes and from a habit, which they early acquire, of stooping considerably forward in order to balance the weight of the child they carry in their hood.

In their figure they are rather well-formed than otherwise. Their knees are indeed rather large in proportion, but their legs are straight, and the hands and feet, in both sexes, remarkably small. The younger individuals were all plump, but none of them corpulent; the women inclined the most to this last extreme, and their flesh was, even in the youngest individuals, quite loose and without firmness.

Their faces are generally round and full, eyes small and black, nose also small and sunk far in between the cheek bones, but not much flattened. It is remarkable that one man, Tē-ă, his brother, his wife, and two daughters had good Roman noses, and one of the latter was an extremely pretty young woman. Their teeth are short, thick, and close, generally regular, and in the young persons almost always white. The elderly women were still well furnished in this way, though their teeth were usually a good deal worn down, probably by the habit of chewing the seal-skins for making boots.

In the young of both sexes the complexion is clear and transparent, and the skin smooth. The colour of the latter, when divested of oil and dirt, is scarcely a shade darker than that of a deep brunette, so that the blood is plainly perceptible when it mounts into the cheeks. In the old folks, whose faces were much wrinkled, the skin appears of a much more dingy hue, the dirt being less

easily, and therefore less frequently, dislodged from them. Besides the smallness of their eyes, there are two peculiarities in this feature common to almost all of them. The first consists in the eye not being horizontal as with us, but coming much lower at the end next the nose than at the other. Of the second an account by Mr. Edwards will be given in another place.

By whatever peculiarities, however, they may in general be distinguished, they are by no means ill-looking people; and there were among them three or four grown-up persons of each sex who, when divested of their skin-dresses, their tattooing, and, above all, of their dirt, might have been considered pleasing-looking, if not handsome, people in any town in Europe. This remark applies more generally to the children also; several of whom had complexions nearly as fair as that of Europeans, and whose little bright black eyes gave a fine expression to their countenances.

The hair both of males and females is black, glossy, and straight. The men usually wear it rather long, and allow it to hang about their heads in a loose and slovenly manner. A few of the younger men, and especially those who had been about the shores of the Welcome, had it cut straight upon the forehead, and two or three had a circular patch upon the crown of the head, where the hair was quite short and thin, somewhat after the manner of Capuchin friars. The women pride themselves extremely on the length and thickness of their hair; and it was not without reluctance on their part, and the same on that of their husbands, that they were induced to dispose of any of it. When inclined to be neat they separate their locks into two equal parts, one of which hangs on each side of their heads and in front of their shoulders. To

stiffen and bind these they use a narrow strap of deerskin attached at one end to a round piece of bone, fourteen inches long, tapered to a point, and covered over with leather. This looks like a little whip, the handle of which is placed up and down the hair, and the strap wound round it in a number of spiral turns, making the tail thus equipped very much resemble one of those formerly worn by our seamen. The strap of this article of dress, which is altogether called a tŏglēēgă, is so made from the deerskin as to show, when bound round the hair, alternate turns of white and dark fur, which give it a very neat and ornamental appearance. On ordinary occasions it is considered slovenly not to have the hair thus dressed, and the neatest of the women never visited the ships without it. Those who are less nice dispose their hair into a loose plait on each side, or have one tŏglēēgă and one plait; and others again, wholly disregarding the business of the toilet, merely tucked their hair in under the breast of their jackets. Some of the women’s hair was tolerably fine, but would not in this respect bear a comparison with that of an Englishwoman. In both sexes it is full of vermin, which they are in the constant habit of picking out and eating; a man and his wife will sit for an hour together performing for each other that friendly office. The women have a comb, which, however, seems more intended for ornament than use, as we seldom or never observed them comb their hair. When a woman’s husband is ill she wears her hair loose, and cuts it off as a sign of mourning if he dies—a custom agreeing with that of the Greenlanders. It is probable also, from what has been before said, that some opprobrium is attached to the loss of a woman’s hair when no such occasion demands this sacrifice. The men wear the hair on the upper lip and

chin, from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and some were distinguished by a little tuft between the chin and lower lip.

The dresses both of male and female are composed almost entirely of deer-skin, in which respect they differ from those of most Esquimaux before met with. In the form of the dress they vary very little from those so repeatedly described. The jacket, which is close, but not tight, all round, comes as low as the hips, and has sleeves reaching to the wrist. In that of the women, the tail or flap behind is very broad, and so long as almost to touch the ground; while a shorter and narrower one before reaches half-way down the thigh. The men have also a tail in the hind part of their jacket, but of smaller dimensions; but before it is generally straight or ornamented by a single scollop. The hood of the jacket, which forms the only covering for their head, is much the largest in that of the women, for the purpose of holding a child. The back of the jacket also bulges out in the middle to give the child a footing, and a strap or girdle below this, and secured round the waist by two large wooden buttons in front, prevents the infant from falling through, when, the hood being in use, it is necessary thus to deposit it. The sleeves of the women’s jackets are made more square and loose about the shoulders than those of the men, for the convenience, as we understood, of more readily depositing a child in the hood; and they have a habit of slipping their arms out of them, and keeping them in contact with their bodies for the sake of warmth, just as we do with our fingers in our gloves in very cold weather.

In winter every individual, when in the open air, wears two jackets, of which the outer one (Cāppĕ-tēggă) has the hair outside, and the inner one (Attēēgă) next the

body. Immediately on entering the hut the men take off their outer jacket, beat the snow from it, and lay it by. The upper garment of the females, besides being cut according to a regular and uniform pattern, and sewed with exceeding neatness, which is the case with all the dresses of these people, has also the flaps ornamented in a very becoming manner by a neat border of deer-skin, so arranged as to display alternate breadths of white and dark fur. This is, moreover, usually beautified by a handsome fringe, consisting of innumerable long narrow threads of leather hanging down from it. This ornament is not uncommon also in the outer jackets of the men. When seal-hunting they fasten up the tails of their jackets with a button behind.

Their breeches, of which in winter they also wear two pairs, and similarly disposed as to the fur, reach below the knee, and fasten with a string drawn tight round the waist. Though these have little or no waist-band, and do not come very high, the depth of the jackets, which considerably overlap them, serves very effectually to complete the covering of the body.

Their legs and feet are so well clothed, that no degree of cold can well affect them. When a man goes on a sealing excursion he first puts on a pair of deer-skin boots (Allĕktēēgă) with the hair inside and reaching to the knee, where they tie. Over these come a pair of shoes of the same material; next a pair of dressed seal-skin boots perfectly water-tight; and over all a corresponding pair of shoes, tying round the instep. These last are made just like the moccasin of a North American Indian, being neatly crimped at the toes, and having several serpentine pieces of hide sewn across the sole to prevent wearing. The water-tight boots and shoes are made of

the skin of the small seal (neitiek), except the soles, which consist of the skin of the large seal (oguke); this last is also used for their fishing-lines. When the men are not prepared to encounter wet they wear an outer boot of deer-skin with the hair outside.

The inner boot of the women, unlike that of the men, is loose round the leg, coming as high as the knee-joint behind, and in front carried up, by a long pointed flap, nearly to the waist, and there fastened to the breeches. The upper boot, with the hair as usual outside, corresponds with the other in shape, except that it is much more full, especially on the outer side, where it bulges out so preposterously as to give the women the most awkward, bow-legged appearance imaginable. This superfluity of boot has probably originated in the custom, still common among the native women of Labrador, of carrying their children in them. We were told that these women sometimes put their children there to sleep; but the custom must be rare among them, as we never saw it practised. These boots, however, form their principal pockets, and pretty capacious ones they are. Here, also, as in the jackets, considerable taste is displayed in the selection of different parts of the deer-skin, alternate strips of dark and white being placed up and down the sides and front by way of ornament. The women also wear a moccasin (Itteegĕgă) over all in the winter time.

One or two persons used to wear a sort of ruff round the neck, composed of the longest white hair of the deerskin, hanging down over the bosom in a manner very becoming to young people. It seemed to afford so little additional warmth to persons already well clothed, that I am inclined rather to attribute their wearing it to some superstitious notion. The children between two and

eight or nine years of age had a pair of breeches and boots united in one, with braces over their shoulders to keep them up. These, with a jacket like the others and a pair of deer-skin mittens, with which each individual is furnished, constitute the whole of their dress. Children’s clothes are often made of the skins of very young fawns and of the marmot, as being softer than those of the deer.

The Esquimaux, when thus equipped, may at all times bid defiance to the rigour of this inhospitable climate; and nothing can exceed the comfortable appearance which they exhibit even in the most inclement weather. When seen at a little distance the white rim of their hoods, whitened still more by the breath collecting and freezing upon it, and contrasted with the dark faces which they encircle, render them very grotesque objects; but while the skin of their dresses continues in good condition they always look clean and wholesome.

To judge by the eagerness with which the women received our beads, especially small white ones, as well as any other article of that kind, we might suppose them very fond of personal ornament. Yet of all that they obtained from us in this way at Winter Island, scarcely anything ever made its appearance again during our stay there, except a ring or two on the finger, and some bracelets of beads round the wrist: the latter of these was probably considered as a charm of some kind or other. We found among them, at the time of our first intercourse, a number of small black and white glass beads, disposed alternately on a string of sinew, and worn in this manner. They would also sometimes hang a small bunch of these, or a button or two, in front of their jackets and hair; and many of them, in the course of the

second winter, covered the whole front of their jackets with the beads they received from us.

The most common ornament of this kind, exclusively their own, consists in strings of teeth, sometimes many hundred in number, which are either attached to the lower part of the jacket, like the fringe before described, or fastened as a belt round the waist. Most of these teeth are of the fox and wolf, but some also belong to the musk-ox (ōōmĭngmŭk), of which animal, though it is never seen at Winter Island, we procured from the Esquimaux several of the grinders and a quantity of the hair and skin. The bones of the kāblĕĕ-ārioo, supposed to be the wolverine, constitute another of their ornaments; and it is more than probable that all these possess some imaginary qualities, as specific charms for various purposes. The most extraordinary amulet, if it be one, of this kind was a row of foxes’ noses attached to the fore-part of a woman’s jacket like a tier of black buttons. I purchased from Iligliuk a semicircular ornament of brass, serrated at the upper edge and brightly polished, which she wore over her hair in front and which was very becoming. The handsomest thing of this kind, however, was understood to be worn on the head by men, though we did not learn on what occasions. It consisted of a band two inches in breadth, composed of several strips of skin sewn together, alternately black and yellow; near the upper edge some hair was artfully interwoven, forming with the skin a very pretty chequer-work: along the lower edge were suspended more than a hundred small teeth, principally of the deer, neatly fastened by small double tags of sinew, and forming a very appropriate fringe.

Among their personal ornaments must also be reckoned

that mode of marking the body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the comfort or happiness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively practised throughout the world. Among those people it seems to be an ornament of indispensable importance to the women, not one of them being without it. The operation is performed about the age of ten, or sometimes earlier, and has nothing to do with marriage, except that, being considered in the light of a personal charm, it may serve to recommend them as wives. The parts of the body thus marked are their faces, arms, hands, thighs, and in some few women the breasts, but never the feet as in Greenland. The operation, which by way of curiosity most of our gentlemen had practised on their arms, is very expeditiously managed by passing a needle and thread (the latter covered with lamp-black and oil) under the epidermis, according to a pattern previously marked out upon the skin. Several stitches being thus taken at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part while the thread is drawn through, by which means the colouring matter is retained, and a permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin. A woman expert at this business will perform it very quickly and with great regularity, but seldom without drawing blood in many places, and occasioning some inflammation. Where so large a portion of the surface of the body is to be covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process, especially as, for want of needles, they often use a strip of whalebone as a substitute. For those parts where a needle cannot conveniently be passed under the skin they use the method by puncture, which is common in other countries, and by which our seamen frequently mark their hands and arms. Several of the men were marked on the back part of

their hands; and with them we understood it to be considered as a souvenir of some distant or deceased person who had performed it.

In their winter habitations, I have before mentioned that the only materials employed are snow and ice, the latter being made use of for the windows alone. The work is commenced by cutting from a drift of hard and compact snow a number of oblong slabs, six or seven inches thick and about two feet in length, and laying them edgeways on a level spot, also covered with snow, in a circular form, and of a diameter from eight to fifteen feet, proportioned to the number of occupants the hut is to contain. Upon this as a foundation is laid a second tier of the same kind, but with the pieces inclining a little inwards, and made to fit closely to the lower slabs and to each other, by running a knife adroitly along the under part and sides. The top of this tier is now prepared for the reception of a third by squaring it off smoothly with a knife, all which is dexterously performed by one man standing within the circle and receiving the blocks of snow from those employed in cutting them without. When the wall has attained a height of four or five feet, it leans so much inward as to appear as if about to tumble every moment; but the workmen still fearlessly lay their blocks of snow upon it, until it is too high any longer to furnish the materials to the builder in this manner. Of this he gives notice by cutting a hole close to the ground in that part where the door is intended to be, which is near the south side, and through this the snow is now passed. Thus they continue till they have brought the sides nearly to meet in a perfect and well-constructed dome, sometimes nine or ten feet high in the centre; and this they take considerable

care in finishing, by fitting the last block or keystone very nicely in the centre, dropping it into its place from the outside, though it is still done by the man within. The people outside are in the meantime occupied in throwing up snow with the pŏoāllĕrāy, or snow-shovel, and in stuffing in little wedges of snow where holes have been accidentally left.

The builder next proceeds to let himself out by enlarging the proposed doorway into the form of a Gothic arch three feet high, and two feet and a half wide at the bottom, communicating with which they construct two passages, each from ten to twelve feet long and from four to five feet in height, the lowest being that next the hut. The roofs of these passages are sometimes arched, but more generally made flat by slabs laid on horizontally. In first digging the snow for building the hut, they take it principally from the part where the passages are to be made, which purposely brings the floor of the latter considerably lower than that of the hut, but in no part do they dig till the bare ground appears.

The work just described completes the walls of a hut, if a single apartment only be required; but if, on account of relationship, or from any other cause, several families are to reside under one roof, the passages are made common to all, and the first apartment (in that case made smaller) forms a kind of ante-chamber, from which you go through an arched doorway, five feet high, into the inhabited apartments. When there are three of these, which is generally the case, the whole building, with its adjacent passages, forms a tolerably regular cross.

For the admission of light into the huts a round hole is cut on one side of the roof of each apartment, and a circular plate of ice, three or four inches thick and two

feet in diameter, let into it. The light is soft and pleasant, like that transmitted through ground glass, and is quite sufficient for every purpose. When after some time these edifices become surrounded by drift, it is only by the windows, as I have before remarked, that they could be recognised as human habitations. It may, perhaps, then be imagined how singular is their external appearance at night, when they discover themselves only by a circular disc of light transmitted through the windows from the lamps within.

The next thing to be done is to raise a bank of snow, two and a half feet high, all round the interior of each apartment, except on the side next the door. This bank, which is neatly squared off, forms their beds and fireplace, the former occupying the sides, and the latter the end opposite the door. The passage left open up to the fireplace is between three and four feet wide. The beds are arranged by first covering the snow with a quantity of small stones, over which are laid their paddles, tent-poles, and some blades of whalebone; above these they place a number of little pieces of network, made of thin slips of whalebone, and, lastly, a quantity of twigs of birch and of the andromeda tetragona. Their deer-skins, which are very numerous, can now be spread without risk of their touching the snow; and such a bed is capable of affording not merely comfort but luxurious repose, in spite of the rigour of the climate. The skins thus used as blankets are made of a large size, and bordered, like some of the jackets, with a fringe of long narrow slips of leather, in which state a blanket is called kēipik.

The fire belonging to each family consists of a single lamp, or shallow vessel of lapis ollaris, its form being the lesser segment of a circle. The wick, composed of

dry moss rubbed between the hands till it is quite inflammable, is disposed along the edge of the lamp on the straight side, and a greater or smaller quantity lighted, according to the heat required or the fuel that can be afforded. When the whole length of this, which is sometimes above eighteen inches, is kindled, it affords a most brilliant and beautiful light, without any perceptible smoke or any offensive smell. The lamp is made to supply itself with oil, by suspending a long thin slice of whale, seal, or sea-horse blubber near the flame, the warmth of which causes the oil to drip into the vessel until the whole is extracted. Immediately over the lamp is fixed a rude and rickety framework of wood, from which their pots are suspended, and serving also to sustain a large hoop of bone, having a net stretched tight within it. This contrivance, called Innĕtăt, is intended for the reception of any wet things, and is usually loaded with boots, shoes, and mittens.

The fireplace, just described as situated at the upper end of the apartment, has always two lamps facing different ways, one for each family occupying the corresponding bed-place. There is frequently also a smaller and less-pretending establishment on the same model—lamp, pot, net, and all—in one of the corners next the door; for one apartment sometimes contains three families, which are always closely related, and no married woman, or even a widow without children, is without her separate fireplace.

With all the lamps lighted and the hut full of people and dogs, a thermometer placed on the net over the fire indicated a temperature of 38°; when removed two or three feet from this situation it fell to 31°, and placed close to the wall stood at 23°, the temperature of the open

air at the time being 25° below zero. A greater degree of warmth than this produces extreme inconvenience by the dropping from the roofs. This they endeavour to obviate by applying a little piece of snow to the place from which a drop proceeds, and this adhering is for a short time an effectual remedy; but for several weeks in the spring, when the weather is too warm for these edifices, and still too cold for tents, they suffer much on this account.

The most important perhaps of the domestic utensils, next to the lamp already described, are the ōōtkŏŏsĕĕks or stone pots for cooking. These are hollowed out of solid lapis ollaris, of an oblong form, wider at the top than at the bottom, all made in similar proportion, though of various sizes, corresponding with the dimensions of the lamp which burns under it. The pot is suspended by a line of sinew at each end to the framework over the fire, and thus becomes so black on every side that the original colour of the stone is in no part discernible. Many of them were cracked quite across in several places, and mended by sewing with sinew or rivets of copper, iron, or lead, so as, with the assistance of a lashing and a due proportion of dirt, to render them quite water-tight. I may here remark that as these people distinguish the Wager River by the name of Oōtkŏŏsĕĕksălik, we were at first led to conjecture that they procured their pots, or the material for making them, in that neighbourhood; this, however, they assured us was not the case, the whole of them coming from Akkoolee, where the stone is found in very high situations. One of the women at Winter Island, who came from that country, said that her parents were much employed in making these pots, chiefly it seems as articles of barter. The asbestos, which they use in the shape of a roundish pointed stick called tatko for

trimming the lamps, is met with about Repulse Bay, and generally, as they said, on low land.

Besides the ootkooseeks, they have circular and oval vessels of whalebone of various sizes, which, as well as their ivory knives made out of a walrus’s tusk, are precisely similar to those described on the western coast of Baffin’s Bay in 1820. They have also a number of smaller vessels of skin sewed neatly together, and a large basket of the same material, resembling a common sieve in shape, but with the bottom close and tight, is to be seen in every apartment. Under every lamp stands a sort of “save-all,” consisting of a small skin basket for catching the oil that falls over. Almost every family was in possession of a wooden tray very much resembling those used to carry butcher’s meat in England, and of nearly the same dimensions, which we understood them to have procured by way of Noowook. They had a number of the bowls or cups already once or twice alluded to as being made out of the thick root of the horn of the musk-ox. Of the smaller part of the same horn they also form a convenient drinking-cup, sometimes turning it up artificially about one-third from the point, so as to be almost parallel to the other part, and cutting it full of small notches as a convenience in grasping it. These, or any other vessels for drinking, they call Immōōchiuk.

Besides the ivory knives, the men were well supplied with a much more serviceable kind, made of iron, and called panna. The form of this knife is very peculiar, being seven inches long, two and a quarter broad, quite straight and flat, pointed at the end, and ground equally sharp at both edges; this is firmly secured into a handle of bone or wood, about a foot long, by two or three iron rivets, and has all the appearance of a most destructive

spear-head, but is nevertheless put to no other purpose than that of a very useful knife, which the men are scarcely ever without, especially on their sealing excursions. For these, and several knives of European form, they are probably indebted to an indirect communication with our factories in Hudson’s Bay. The same may be observed of the best of their women’s knives (ooloo), on one of which, of a larger size than usual, were the names of “Wild and Sorby.” When of their own manufacture, the only iron part was a little narrow slip let into the bone and secured by rivets. It is curious to observe in this, and in numerous other instances, how exactly, amidst all the diversity of time and place, these people have preserved unaltered their manners and habits as mentioned by Crantz. That which an absurd dread of innovation does in China, the want of intercourse with other nations has effected among the Esquimaux.

Of the horn of the musk-ox they make also very good spoons much like ours in shape; and I must not omit to mention their marrow spoons (pattēkniuk, from pāttĕk, marrow), made out of long, narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, of which every housewife has a bunch of half a dozen or more tied together, and generally attached to her needle-case.

For the purpose of obtaining fire the Esquimaux use two lumps of common iron pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands. If this tinder does not readily catch, a small quantity of the white floss of the seed of the ground willow is laid above the moss. As soon as a spark has caught, it is gently blown till the fire has spread an inch around, when, the pointed end of a piece of oiled wick being applied, it soon bursts into a

flame, the whole process having occupied perhaps two or three minutes.

Among the articles in their possession, which must have been obtained by communication along shore with Hudson’s Bay, were two large copper kettles, several open knives with crooked wooden handles, and many fragments of copper, iron, and old files. On a small European axe was observed the name of “Foster.”

In enumerating the articles of their food, we might perhaps give a list of every animal inhabiting these regions, as they certainly will at times eat any one of them. Their principal dependence, however, is on the reindeer (tōōktoŏ), musk-ox (ōōmĭngmŭk)(in the parts where this animal is found), whale (āggăwĕk), walrus (ēi-ŭ-ĕk), the large and small seal (ōgŭke and nēitiek), and two sorts of salmon, the ēwĕe-tārŏke (salmo alpinus?) and ichlūŏwŏke. The latter is taken by hooks in freshwater lakes, and the former by spearing in the shoal water of certain inlets of the sea. Of all these animals they can only procure in the winter the walrus and small seal upon this part of the coast; and these at times, as we have seen, in scarcely sufficient quantity for their subsistence.

They certainly in general prefer eating their meat cooked, and while they have fuel they usually boil it; but this is a luxury and not a necessary to them. Oily as the nature of their principal food is, yet they commonly take an equal proportion of lean to their fat, and unless very hungry do not eat it otherwise. Oil they seldom or never use in any way as a part of their general diet; and even our butter, of which they were fond, they would not eat without a due quantity of bread. They do not like salt meat as well as fresh, and never use salt themselves; but ship’s pork, or even a red herring, did not come amiss

to them. Of pea-soup they would eat as much as the sailors could afford to give them; and that word was the only one, with the exception of our names, which many of them ever learned in English. Among their own luxuries must be mentioned a rich soup called kāyŏ, made of blood, gravy, and water, and eaten quite hot. In obtaining the names of several plants, we learned that they sometimes eat the leaves of sorrel (kōngŏlek), and those of the ground willow; as also the red berries (paōōna-rootik) of the vaccinium uliginosum, and the root of the potentilla pulchella; but these cannot be said to form a part of their regular diet; scurvy grass they never eat.

Their only drink is water; and of this, when they can procure it, they swallow an inconceivable quantity; so that one of the principal occupations of the women during the winter is the thawing of snow in the ootkooseks for this purpose. They cut it into thin slices, and are careful to have it clean, on which account they will bring it from a distance of fifty yards from the huts. They have an extreme dislike to drinking water much above the temperature of 32°. In eating their meals the mistress of the family, having previously cooked the meat, takes a large lump out of the pot with her fingers, and hands it to her husband, who placing a part of it between his teeth cuts it off with a large knife in that position, and then passes the knife and meat together to his next neighbour. In cutting off a mouthful of meat the knife passes so close to their lips, that nothing but constant habit could ensure them from the danger of the most terrible gashes; and it would make an English mother shudder to see the manner in which children, five or six years old, are at all times freely trusted with a knife to be used in this way.

The length of one of the best of seven canoes belonging to these Esquimaux was twenty-five feet, including a narrow-pointed projection, three feet long at each end, which turns a little upward from the horizontal. The extreme breadth, which is just before the circular hole, was twenty-one inches, and the depth ten inches and a half. The plane of the upper surface of the canoe, except in the two extreme projections, bends downwards a little from the centre towards the head and stern, giving it the appearance of what is in ships called “broken-backed.” The gunwales are of fir, in some instances of one piece, three or four inches broad in the centre and tapering gradually away towards the ends. The timbers, as well as the fore-and-aft connecting pieces, are of the same material, the former being an inch square, and sometimes so close together as to require between forty and fifty of them in one canoe: which when thus “in frame” is one of the prettiest things of the kind that can be imagined. The skin with which the canoe is covered is exclusively that of the neitiek, prepared by scraping off the hair and fat with an ooloo, and stretching it tight on a frame over the fire; after which and a good deal of chewing, it is sewn on by the women with admirable neatness and strength. Their paddles have a blade at each end, the whole length being nine feet and a half; the blades are covered with a narrow plate of bone round the ends to secure them from splitting: they are always made of fir, and generally of several pieces scarfed and woolded together.