d to return for the present, as directed by my
telegraphic communication; but being anxious to keep the ship free
from water as long as possible, he left an officer and a small party
of men to continue working at the pumps, so long as a communication
could be kept up between the Hecla and the shore. Every moment,
however, decreased the practicability of doing this; and finding, soon
after Captain Hoppner's return, that the current swept the Hecla a
long way to the southward while hoisting up the boats, and that more
ice was drifting in towards the shore, I was under the painful
necessity of recalling the party at the pumps, rather than incur the
risk, now an inevitable one, of parting company with them altogether.
Accordingly Mr. Bird, with the last of the people, came on board at
eight o'clock in the evening, having left eighteen inches water in
the well, and four pumps being requisite to keep her free. In three
hours after Mr. Bird's return, more than half a mile of closely packed
ice intervened between the Fury and the open water in which we were
beating, and before the morning this barrier had increased to four or
five miles in breadth.

'We carried a press of canvas all night, with a fresh breeze from the
north, to enable us to keep abreast of the Fury, which, on account of
the strong southerly current, we could only do by beating at some
distance from the land. The breadth of the ice inshore continued
increasing during the day, but we could see no end to the water in
which we were beating, either to the southward or eastward. Advantage
was taken of the little leisure now allowed us to let the people mend
and wash their clothes, which they had scarcely had a moment to do for
the last three weeks. We also completed the thrumming of a second sail
for putting under the Fury's keel, whenever we should be enabled to
haul her off the shore. It fell quite calm in the evening, when the
breadth of the ice inshore had increased to six or seven miles. We did
not, during the day, perceive any current setting to the southward,
but in the course of the night we were drifted four or five leagues to
the south-westward, in which situation we had a distinct view of a
large extent of land, which had before been seen for the first time by
some of our gentlemen, who walked from where the Fury lay. This land
trends very much to the westward, a little beyond the Fury Point, the
name by which I have distinguished that headland, near which