rom any of them. I never saw them express more
surprise than on being assured that we had left Winter Island only a
single day; a circumstance which might well excite their wonder,
considering that they had themselves been above forty in reaching our
present station. They had obtained one reindeer, and had now a large
seal on their sledge, to which we added a quantity of bread-dust, that
seemed acceptable enough to them. As our way lay in the same direction
as theirs, I would gladly have taken their whole establishment on board
the ships to convey them to Amitioke, but for the uncertain nature of
this navigation, which might eventually have put it out of my power to
land them at the precise place of their destination. The ice again
opening, we were now obliged to dismiss them, after half an hour's
visit, when, having run to the Hecla's bows to see Captain Lyon and his
people, they returned to their sledge as fast as their loads of presents
would allow them.

We continued our progress northward, contending with the flood-tide and
the drifting masses of ice; and the difficulties of such a navigation
may be conceived from the following description of what happened to us
on the 9th.

At half past eight on the morning of the 9th, a considerable space of
open water being left to the northward of us by the ice that had broken
off the preceding night, I left the Fury in a boat for the purpose of
sounding along the shore in that direction, in readiness for moving
whenever the Hecla should be enabled to rejoin us. I found the soundings
regular in almost every part, and had just landed to obtain a view from
an eminence, when I was recalled by a signal from the Fury, appointed to
inform me of the approach of any ice. On my return, I found the external
body once more in rapid motion to the southward with the flood-tide, and
assuming its usual threatening appearance. For an hour or two the Fury
was continually grazed, and sometimes heeled over by a degree of
pressure which, under any other circumstances, would not have been
considered a moderate one, but which the last two or three days'
navigation had taught us to disregard, when compared with what we had
reason almost every moment to expect. A little before noon a heavy floe,
some miles in length, being probably a part of that lately detached from
the shore, came driving down fast towards us, giving us serious reason
to apprehend some more fatal catastrophe than any we had yet
en