PARRY'S POLAR VOYAGE. 183 



and larger floes, made rather better progress. While 

 the boats were landing on one of these, the commander 

 and Lieut. Ross usually pushed on to the other end, to 

 ascertain the best course. On reaching the extremity, 

 they commonly mounted the largest hummock, whence 

 they beheld a sight of which nothing could exceed the 

 dreariness. The eye rested solely upon ice, and a sky 

 hid in dense and dismal fogs. 



One warm day, two flies on the ice were regardee 

 with a degree of attention that would have been ludi* 

 crous under other circumstances ; and equally important 

 was the sight of an aphis borealis, in a languid state, a 

 hundred miles away from land. Amid this scene of 

 inanimate desolation, the view of a passing bird, or of 

 ice in any peculiar shape, excited an intense interest, 

 which they smiled to recollect ; but they were princi- 

 pally cheered by viewing the two boats in the distance, 

 the moving figures of the men winding with their sledges 

 among the hummocks, and by hearing the sound of 

 human voices, which broke the silence of this frozen 

 wilderness. The rain and the increasing warmth of the 

 season, indeed, gradually softened the ice and snow, 

 but this only caused the travellers to sink deeper at 

 every step. At one place they sank repeatedly three 

 feet, and required three hours to make a hundred yards. 

 Having attained 82 40', they began to hold it as a fixed 

 point that their efforts would be crowned with success 

 so far as to reach the eighty-third parallel. This hope 

 seemed converted into certainty when, on the 22d, they 

 had travelled seventeen miles, the greater proportion of 

 which was directly north. But there now occurred an 

 unfavorable change, which baffled all their exertions. 



Down to the 19th, the wind had blown steadily from 

 the south, which, though without aiding them much, 

 had at least checked the usual movement of the ice in 



