course of the day, for the sake of cleanliness and
comfort.

The wind falling towards midnight, we launched the boats at half past
one A.M. on the 11th, paddling alternately in large spaces of clear
water and among streams of loose "sailing ice." We soon afterward
observed such indications of an open sea as could not be mistaken, much
of the ice being "washed" as by a heavy sea, with small rounded
fragments thrown on the surface, and a good deal of "dirty ice"
occurring. After passing through a good deal of loose ice, it became
gradually more and more open, till at length, at a quarter before seven
A.M., we heard the first sound of the swell under the hollow margins of
the ice, and in a quarter of an hour had reached the open sea, which was
dashing with heavy surges against the outer masses. We hauled the boats
upon one of these, to eat our last meal upon the ice, and to complete
the necessary supply of water for our little voyage to Table Island,
from which we were now distant fifty miles, our latitude being 81 deg. 34',
and longitude 18-1/4 deg. E. A light air springing up from the N.W., we
again launched the boats, and at eight A.M. finally quitted the ice,
after having taken up our abode upon it for forty-eight days.

We had some fog during the night, so that we steered entirely by
compass, according to our last observations by the chronometers, which
proved so correct, that, at five A.M. on the 12th, on the clearing up of
the haze, we made the island right ahead. At eleven A.M. we reached the
island, or rather the rock to the northward of it, where our provisions
had been deposited; and I cannot describe the comfort we experienced in
once more feeling a dry and solid footing. We found that the bears had
devoured all the bread (one hundred pounds), which occasioned a remark
among the men, with reference to the quantity of these animals' flesh
that we had eaten, that "Bruin was only square with us." We also found
that Lieutenant Crozier had been here since we left the island, bringing
some materials for repairing our boats, as well as various little
luxuries to which we had lately been strangers, and depositing in a
copper cylinder a letter from Lieutenant Foster, giving me a detailed
account of the proceedings of the ship up to the 23d of July. By this I
learned that the Hecla had been forced on shore on the 7th of July, by
the breaking-up of the ice at the head of the bay, which came down upon
her in one solid mas