is skirted, and subsequently Beachey
Island is reached. From hence they move northward again, and to
Wellington Channel, only to be turned back again by the ice.

But the signs of coming winter made it absolutely necessary that some
sheltered place should be found in which the long dreary months might be
passed. Day after day the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ sought such a
resting-place, and found none. Any advance was now out of the question;
the "massing" ice prevented that, and threatened them daily. At length
it was decided to run for shelter to Beachey Island, and in Erebus and
Terror Bay the expedition was made as snug as possible for the winter.
The daily record of the passed months tells us of a continual struggle
with ice and snow; checks and renewed efforts; storm-tossed seas, and
icebergs innumerable.

At Beachey Island the vessels remained after their exploration of nearly
three hundred miles of new ground. Plans, no doubt, were made for the
following year, while the cold death-like hand of winter came and
grasped everything in its iron grip. The sun, of course, left the
ships, and after climbing the hills to see the last of him, the crews
went back in darkness to the vessels. How the crews amused themselves
during the winter we can imagine, and we find plenty of testimony to the
games, the acting, the reading, and study, in which time was passed.
The great thing to be aimed at was occupation--action. Stagnation meant
death.

Three men died during the winter, and when the sun reappeared, when the
creeks in the ice warned the crews that the time of release was at hand,
a good and anxious look-out was kept. At length the ice-floes moved
away, and after a while the channel was cut out for the release of the
_Erebus_ and _Terror_. The open water was at length gained, the
instructions were to go south-west from Cape Walker, and that was now
the point aimed at. When the Cape had been gained, and quitted for Cape
Herschel, the ships fell into the Melville Island ice-stream, and they
struggled on till King William's Land was sighted. But unfortunately by
that time another winter had began to reform the ice. So there was
nothing to do but find winter quarters, which were finally established
northward of Cape Felix, in anything but a happy place, for the ice
there is described as of a most fearful nature, and of terrible
pressure.

Here there was a fearful prospect--nothing but ice in mountains, and in
masse