1853.] EXAMINE THE COAST EASTERLY. 359 



might sweep them from the face of the deep, and leave 

 riot a trace behind ! The presence of a consort could 

 not avail ; they are generally, as it were, linked together, 

 particularly when beset in ice, and the same fate to both, 

 in our case, would certainly have resulted. 



Here then our present prospects were at least painfully 

 delayed, and by many were considered to be entirely 

 frustrated for this season. But although opinions were 

 perhaps too openly expressed, I deemed it prudent to be 

 prepared for taking the pack again, asserting distinctly, 

 " that the vessels should not winter there." In order to 

 keep up the excitement, I first made the survey of the 

 port, and then started in my gig to determine how far 

 I could safely take the ship within the grounded hum- 

 mocks. Day by day led on to fresh advances, until I 

 gained the heights about nine miles easterly, close under 

 which Mr. Grove had landed in open water on the 15th 

 of August ! We can only imagine that an overruling 

 Providence directs us ! One of two events might have 

 occurred ; the first was our possible escape into the east- 

 ern open water, at this moment clear up to Point Ho- 

 garth ; the next our unmistakable demolition, had we 

 been pressed on Cape Preservation ! The height of the 

 ice piled there, within which our boat entered freely at 

 high water, was not under eighty feet on the inner side, 

 where a sloping debris, composed of finely comminuted 

 particles of the purest white ice, fell inwards. To sea- 

 ward it was piled with enormous blocks of ice, one over 

 the other, in perfect confusion : not ordinary ice, but of 

 the same quality as that grounded in three and a half 

 fathoms along the coast, varying from twenty to twenty- 



