miles distant. Over this we could not entertain a doubt of having
discovered the Polar Sea; and, loaded as it was with ice, we already
felt as if we were on the point of forcing our way through it along the
northern shores of America.

After despatching one of our party to the foot of the point for some of
the sea-water, which was found extremely salt to the taste, we hailed
the interesting event of the morning by three hearty cheers and by a
small extra allowance of grog to our people, to drink a safe and speedy
passage through the channel just discovered, which I ventured to name,
by anticipation, THE STRAIT OF THE FURY AND HECLA. Having built a pile
of stones upon the promontory, which, from its situation with respect to
the Continent of America, I called CAPE NORTHEAST, we walked back to our
tent and baggage, these having, for the sake of greater expedition, been
left two miles behind; and, after resting a few hours, set out at three
P.M. on our return.

We reached the ships at ten o'clock P.M. on Tuesday the 20th. On almost
all the shores both of the main land and islands that we visited, some
traces of the Esquimaux were found; but they were less numerous than in
any other places on which we had hitherto landed. This circumstance
rather seemed to intimate, as we afterward found to be the case, that
the shores of the strait and its immediate neighbourhood are not a
frequent resort of the natives during the summer months.

We got under way on the 21st, were off Cape Northeast on the 26th, and I
gave the name of CAPE OSSORY to the eastern point of the northern land
of the Narrows; but on that day, after clearing two dangerous shoals,
and again deepening our soundings, we had begun to indulge the most
flattering hopes of now making such a rapid progress as would in some
degree compensate for all our delays and disappointments, when, at once
to crush every expectation of this sort, it was suddenly announced from
the crow's nest that another barrier of _fixed_ ice stretched completely
across the strait, a little beyond us, in one continuous and
impenetrable field, still occupying its winter station. In less than an
hour we had reached its margin, when, finding this report but too
correct, and that, therefore, all farther progress was at present as
impracticable as if no strait existed, we ran the ships under all sail
for the floe, which proved so "rotten" and decayed that the ships forced
themselves three or four hu