d; this certain indication of approaching winter was not to be
mistaken, and we anxiously counted the hours which kept flitting past,
whilst we were chained up in Union Bay.

South-easterly winds forced the pack tighter and tighter in Wellington
Channel, and once or twice it threatened to beset us even in Union Bay;
and on the 31st of August our position was still the same, the
Americans being a little in advance, off Point Innis.

From the 1st to the 4th of September, we lay wishing for an opening,
the Americans working gallantly along the edge of the fixed ice of
Wellington Channel, towards Barlow Inlet.

September the 5th brought the wished-for change. A lead of water.
Hurrah! up steam! take in tow! every one's spirits up to the
high-top-gallant of their joy; long streaks of water showing across
Wellington Channel, out of which broad floe-pieces were slowly sailing,
whilst a hard, cold appearance in the northern sky betokened a
northerly breeze.

[Headnote: _THE WHITE WHALE._]

With the "Resolute" fast astern, the "Pioneer" slipped round an
extensive field of ice; as it ran aground off Cape Spencer, shutting
off in our rear Captain Penny's brigs and the "Felix," another mass of
ice at the same time caught on Point Innis, and, unable to get past it,
we again made fast, sending a boat to watch the moment the ice should
float, and leave us a passage to the westward. Whilst thus secured, we
had abundant amusement and occupation in observing the movements of
shoals of white whales. They were what the fishermen on board called
"running" south, a term used to express the steady and rapid passage of
the fish from one feeding-ground to the other. From the mast-head, the
water about us appeared filled with them, whilst they constantly rose
and blew, and hurried on, like the birds we had lately seen, to better
regions in the south. That they had been north to breed was undoubted,
by the number of young "calves" in every shoal. The affection between
mother and young was very evident; for occasionally some stately white
whale would loiter on her course, as if to scrutinize the new and
strange objects now floating in these unploughed waters, whilst the
calf, all gambols, rubbed against the mother's side, or played about
her. The proverbial shyness of these fish was proved by our fishermen
and sportsmen to be an undoubted fact, for neither with harpoon nor
rifle-ball could they succeed in capturing any of them.

It was a sub