o some land ice, and I proceeded on alone in the "Pioneer" to see
what the prospect was further on.

Cutting through some rotten ice of about six inches in thickness, we
reached water beyond it, and saw a belt of water, of no great width,
extending along shore as far as the next headland, called Horse's-head.
Picking up a boat belonging to the "Chieftain" whaler, which had been
shooting and egging, I returned towards the "Resolute" with my
intelligence, giving Cape Shackleton a close shave to avoid the ice
which was setting against it from the westward, the whalemen whom I had
on board expressing no small astonishment and delight at the way in
which we screwed through the broken ice of nine-inch thickness. On
reaching the squadron, I found it made fast for the night, and parties
of officers preparing to start in different directions to shoot, and
see what was to be seen, for, of course, our night was as light as the
day of any other region.

To the "Chieftain's" doctor I, with others of the "Pioneer," consigned
what we flattered ourselves were our last letters, thinking that, now
the steamers had got ahead, it was not likely the whalers would again
be given an opportunity of communicating or overtaking us.

There is something in last letters painful and choking; and I remember
that I hardly knew which feeling most predominated in my
breast,--sorrow and regret for those friends I had left behind me, or
hope and joyful anticipation of meeting those before us in the "Erebus
and Terror."

[Headnote: _CAPE SHACKLETON._]

At any rate, I gave vent to them by climbing the rocky summit of Cape
Shackleton, and throwing off my jacket, let the cold breeze allay the
excitement of my mind.

Nothing strikes the traveller in the north more strongly than the
perceptible repose of Nature, although the sun is still illumining the
heavens, during those hours termed night. We, of course, who were
unaccustomed to the constant light, were restless and unable to sleep;
but the inhabitants of these regions, as well as the animals, retire to
rest with as much regularity as is done in more southern climes; and
the subdued tints of the heavens, as well as the heavy banking of
clouds in the neighbourhood of the sun, gives to the arctic summer
night a quietude as marked as it is pleasant. Across Baffin's Bay there
was ice! ice! ice! on every side, small faint streaks of water here and
there in the distance, with one cheering strip of it windi