104 PARRY'S FIRST VOYAGE. 



store. To this foreland they gave the name of Cape 

 Kater. The western horizon also appeared covered 

 with heavy and extensive floes, a bright and dazzling 

 ice-blink extending from right to left. The name of the 

 Prince Regent was given to this spacious inlet, which 

 Parry strongly suspected must have a communication 

 with Hudson's Bay. He now determined to return to 

 the old station, and watch the opportunity when the 

 relenting ice would allow the ships to proceed west- 

 ward. That point was reached, not without some diffi- 

 culty, amid ice and fog. 



At Prince Leopold's Islands, on the 15th, the barrier 

 was as impenetrable as ever, with a bright blink ; and 

 from the top of a high hill there was no water to be 

 seen ; luckily, also, there was no land. On the 18th, 

 on getting once more close to the northern shore, the 

 navigators began to make a little way, and some showers 

 of rain and snow, accompanied with heavy wind, pro- 

 duced such an effect, that on the 21st the whole ice had 

 disappeared, and they could scarcely believe it to be 

 the same sea which had just before been covered with 

 floes upon floes, as far as the eye could reach. 



Parry now crowded all sail to the westward, and, 

 though detained by want of wind, he passed Radstock 

 Bay, Capes Hurd and Hotham, and Beechey Island ; 

 after which he discovered a fine and broad inlet leading 

 to the north, which he called Wellington. The sea at 

 the mouth being perfectly open, he would not have 

 hesitated to ascend it, had there not been before him, 

 along the southern side of an island named Cornwallis, 

 an open channel leading due west. Wellington Inlet 

 was now considered by the officers, so high were their 

 hopes, as forming the western boundary of the land 

 stretching from Baffin's Bay to the Polar Sea, into 

 which they had little doubt they were entering. For 



