During the two hours that the men were on board,
and for four or five hours that we were subsequently among them on
shore (on both which occasions the temptation to steal from us was
perhaps stronger than we can well imagine, and the opportunity of
doing so by no means wanting), not a single instance occurred, to
my knowledge, of their pilfering the most trifling article. It is
pleasing to record a fact no less singular in itself than
honourable to these simple people.

Having made the necessary observations, we went to the tents to
take leave of our new acquaintance. The old man seemed quite
fatigued with the day's exertions; but his eyes sparkled with
delight, and we thought with gratitude too, on being presented
with another brass kettle to add to the stores with which we had
already enriched him. He seemed to understand us when we shook him
by the hand; the whole group watched us in silence as we went into
the boat, and, as soon as we had rowed a few hundred yards from
the beach, quietly returned to their tents.

The wind being contrary on the 8th, we made very little progress
to the southward. The soundings continuing as regular as before,
we stood in-shore to eleven fathoms, and put the trawl overboard
for an hour or two in the afternoon, bringing up a great quantity
of sea-eggs, a few very small oysters, and some marine insects,
but nothing that could furnish us with a fresh meal.

The wind having fallen, we made little progress to the southeast
till the morning of the 12th, when a light breeze springing up
from the southwest, all sail was made to examine the state of the
ice. On approaching the floes, however, we found such a quantity
of bay-ice, the formation of which upon the surface had been
favoured by the late calm weather, that the Hecla was soon stopped
altogether; a circumstance which gave us, as usual, much trouble
in extricating ourselves from it, but not very material as
regarded our farther progress to the southward, the floes being
found to stretch quite close in to the land, leaving no passage
whatever between them. The compasses now traversed very freely,
and were made use of for the purposes of navigation in the
ordinary way.

The fog continued so thick on the 16th as to oblige us to keep the
ships fast to the floe. In the afternoon the deep-sea clamms were
sent down to the bottom with two thousand and ten fathoms of line,
which were fifty-eight minutes in running out, during which time
n