made fast to a mass of grounded ice for
their future disposal.

As we made several tacks off the island next to the northward of
Igloolik, called by the Esquimaux _Neerlo-Nackto_, two canoes came off
to us, in one of which was Toolemak. He and his companions came on board
the Fury, when I employed him for a couple of hours in drawing a chart
of the strait. Toolemak, though a sensible and intelligent man, we soon
found to be no draughtsman, so that his performance in this way, if
taken alone, was not a very intelligible delineation of the coast. By
dint, however, of a great deal of talking on his part, and some exercise
of patience on ours, we at length obtained a copious verbal illustration
of his sketch, which confirmed all our former accounts respecting the
existence of a passage to the westward in this immediate neighbourhood,
and the large extent of land on the northern side of the strait.
Toolemak also agreed with our other Esquimaux informants in stating,
that from the coast of Akkoolee no land is visible to the westward; nor
was any ever heard of in that direction by the Esquimaux. This fact they
uniformly assert with a whine of sorrow, meaning thereby to intimate
that their knowledge and resources are there both at an end.

The disruption of the ice continued to proceed slowly till early on the
morning of the 14th; the breeze having freshened from the northwest,
another floe broke away from the fixed ice, allowing us to gain about
half a mile more to the westward; such was the vexatious slowness with
which we were permitted to advance towards the object of our most
anxious wishes!

On the 14th I left the ship with Mr. Richards and four men, and
furnished with provisions for ten days, intending, if possible, to reach
the main land at a point where we could overlook the strait. In this we
succeeded after a journey of four days, arriving on the morning of the
18th at the extreme northern point of a peninsula, overlooking the
narrowest part of the desired strait, which lay immediately below us in
about an east and west direction, being two miles in width, apparently
very deep, and with a tide or current of at least two knots, setting the
loose ice through to the eastward. Beyond us, to the west, the shores
again separated to the distance of several leagues; and for more than
three points of the compass, in that direction, no land could be seen to
the utmost limits of a clear horizon, except one island six or seven