r, being rather
wider than the river immediately below it.

After remaining nearly an hour, fixed, as it were, to the spot by the
novelty and magnificence of the scene before us, we continued our walk
upward along the banks; and after passing the two smaller cataracts,
found the river again increased in width to above two hundred yards,
winding in the most romantic manner imaginable among the hills, and
preserving, a smooth and unruffled surface for a distance of three or
four miles that we traced it to the southwest above the fall. What
added extremely to the beauty of this picturesque river, which Captain
Lyon and myself named after our friend Mr. BARROW, Secretary to the
Admiralty, was the richness of the vegetation on its banks, the
enlivening brilliancy of a cloudless sky, and the animation given to the
scene by several reindeer that were grazing beside the stream. Our
sportsmen were fortunate in obtaining four of these animals; but we had
no success with the seines, the ground proving altogether too rocky to
use them with advantage or safety. We returned on board at thirty
minutes past two P.M., after the most gratifying visit we had ever paid
to the shore in these regions.

We found on our return that a fresh, southerly breeze, which had been
blowing for several hours, had driven the ice to some distance from the
land; so that at four P.M., as soon as the flood-tide had slackened, we
cast off and made all possible sail to the northward, steering for a
headland, remarkable for having a patch of land towards the sea, that
appeared insular in sailing along shore. As we approached this headland,
which I named after my friend Mr. PENRHYN, the prospect became more and
more enlivening; for the sea was found to be navigable in a degree very
seldom experienced in these regions, and, the land trending two or three
points to the westward of north, gave us reason to hope we should now be
enabled to take a decided and final turn in that anxiously desired
direction. As we rounded Cape Penrhyn at seven P.M., we began gradually
to lose sight of the external body of ice, sailing close along that
which was still attached in very heavy floes to this part of the coast.
Both wind and tide being favourable, our progress was rapid, and
unobstructed, and nothing could exceed the interest and delight with
which so unusual an event was hailed by us. Before midnight the wind
came more off the land, and then became light and variable, afte