hel Island in a Gale and Fog--A
sudden Gale--Escape an Attack which the Mountain Indians meditated--Enter
the Mackenzie--Peel River--Arrival at Fort Franklin.

[Sidenote: Wednesday, 16th.] The period had now arrived when it was
incumbent on me to consider, whether the prospect of our attaining the
object of the voyage was sufficiently encouraging to warrant the
exposure of the party to daily increasing risk, by continuing on. We
were now only half way from the Mackenzie River to Icy Cape; and the
chance of reaching the latter, depended on the nature of the coast that
was yet unexplored, and the portion of the summer which yet remained for
our operations.

I knew, from the descriptions of Cook and Burney, that the shore about
Icy Cape resembled that we had already passed, in being flat, and
difficult of approach; while the general trending of the coast from the
Mackenzie to the west-north-west, nearly in the direction of Icy Cape,
combined with the information we had collected from the Esquimaux, led
me to conclude that no material change would be found in the
intermediate portion.

The preceding narrative shows the difficulties of navigating such a
coast, even during the finest part of the summer; if, indeed, any
portion of a season which had been marked by a constant succession of
fogs and gales could be called fine. No opportunity of advancing had
been let slip, after the time of our arrival in the Arctic Sea; and the
unwearied zeal and exertion of the crews had been required, for an
entire month, to explore the ten degrees of longitude between Herschel
Island and our present situation, I had, therefore, no reason to suppose
that the ten remaining degrees could be navigated in much less time. The
ice, it is true, was more broken up, and the sea around our present
encampment was clear; but we had lately seen how readily the drift ice
was packed upon the shoals by every breeze of wind blowing towards the
land. The summer, bad as it had been, was now nearly at an end, and on
this point I had the experience of the former voyage for a guide. At
Point Turn-again, two degrees to the south of our present situation,
the comparatively warm summer of 1821 was terminated on the 17th of
August, by severe storms of wind and snow; and in the space of a
fortnight afterwards, winter set in with all its severity. Last year,
too, on the 18th and following days of the same month, we had a heavy
gale at the mouth of the Mackenzie; an