age; and at nine P.M., after beating for several hours among
floes and streams of ice, we got into clear water near that coast,
where we found some swell from the eastward. There was just light
enough at midnight to enable us to read and write in the cabin.

The wind and sea increased on the 19th, with a heavy fall of snow,
which, together with the uselessness of the compasses, and the
narrow space in which we were working between the ice and the
land, combined to make our situation for several hours a very
unpleasant one.

On the 21st we had nothing to impede our progress but the want of
wind, the great opening through, which we had hitherto proceeded
from Baffin's Bay being now so perfectly clear of ice, that it was
impossible to believe it to be the same part of the sea, which,
but a day or two before, had been completely covered with floes to
the utmost extent of our view. In the forenoon we picked up a
small piece of wood, which appeared to have been the end of a
boat's yard, and which caused sundry amusing speculations among
our gentlemen; some of whom had just come to the very natural
conclusion that a ship had been here before us, and that,
therefore, we were not entitled to the honour of the first
discovery of that part of the sea on which we were now sailing;
when a stop was suddenly put to this and other ingenious
inductions by the information of one of the seamen, that he had
dropped it out of his boat a fortnight before. I could not get him
to recollect exactly the day on which it had been dropped, but
what he stated was sufficient to convince me that we were not at
that time more than ten or twelve leagues from our present
situation; perhaps not half so much; and that, therefore, here was
no current setting constantly in any one direction.

We perceived, as we proceeded, that the land along which we were
sailing, and which, with the exception of some small inlets, had
appeared to be hitherto continuous from Baffin's Bay, began now to
trend much to the northward, beyond Beechey Island, leaving a
large open space between that coast and the distant land to the
westward, which now appeared like an island, of which the extremes
to the north and south were distinctly visible. The latter was a
remarkable headland, having at its extremity two small table-hills,
somewhat resembling boats turned bottom upward, and was named
CAPE HOTHAM. At sunset we had a clear and extensive view to the
northward, between Cape