,
taking into consideration every circumstance connected with our
situation." Their answer was decidedly adverse to remaining; and it was
fortified with such good reasons, connected with the health of the
officers and crews, as scarcely to leave me at liberty to adopt any
other course than that of returning to England with both vessels.

Enclosing to Captain Lyon the replies of the medical gentlemen, I now
also requested his opinion whether, under existing circumstances, he
still considered it expedient to adopt the measure originally intended,
with respect to the separation of the two ships. I had scarcely
despatched a letter to this effect, when, at 10 A.M. on the 8th, the ice
about the Fury began to move, the pools breaking up, and the gravelled
canal soon entirely closing. A breeze springing up from the northward at
this time, all sail was made upon the ship, and the ice gradually
driving out as it detached itself from the shore, the Fury got into open
water about one P.M. The Hecla, however, still remained in the middle of
her winter's floe, which, though it moved a little with the rest at
first, did not come out of the bay. In the course of the afternoon,
finding her still stationary, I determined to occupy the time in
stretching over to the northward, for the purpose of examining the state
of the fixed ice at the eastern mouth of the strait; and, arriving at
its margin by ten P.M., found it attached to both shores from the
northeastern part of Neerlo-naktoo across to Murray Maxwell Inlet. It
was the general opinion that this ice was in a more solid state than at
the same time and place the preceding year, but its situation did not, I
believe, differ half a mile from what it had then been. As the sun went
down nearly in the direction of the strait, we obtained from the
masthead a distinct and extensive view in that quarter, and it is
impossible to conceive a more hopeless prospect than this now presented.
One vast expanse of level solid ice occupied the whole extent of sea
visible to the westward, and the eye wearied itself in vain to discover
a single break upon its surface.

Having finished this examination, which at once destroyed every hope I
had never ceased to indulge of a passage through the strait, we returned
towards Igloolik to rejoin the Hecla. It was not, however, till the
morning of the 9th that we observed her to be moving out of the bay,
when at length (for the first time, perhaps, that such an eve