PARRY'S FIRST VOYAGE. 103 



continuous ice ; but it left an open passage, and they 

 hoped to find it merely a detached stream. 



A little space onwards, however, they discovered, 

 with deep dismay, that this ice was joined to a com- 

 pact and impenetrable body of floes, which completely 

 crossed the channel, and joined the western point of 

 Maxwell Bay. It behoved them, therefore, immedi- 

 ately to draw back, to avoid being embayed in the 

 ice, along the edges of which a violent surf was then 

 beating. The officers began to amuse themselves with 

 fruitless attempts to catch white whales, when the 

 weather cleared, and they saw, to the south, an open 

 sea, with a dark water-sky. Parry, hoping that this 

 might lead to an unencumbered passage in a lower 

 latitude, steered in this direction, and found himself at 

 the mouth of a great inlet, ten leagues broad, with no 

 visible termination ; and to the two capes at its en- 

 trance he gave the names of Clarence and Seppings. 



The mariners, finding the western shore of this inlet 

 greatly obstructed with ice, moved across to the east- 

 ern, where they entered a broad and open channel. 

 The coast was the most dreary and desolate they had 

 ever beheld, even in the Arctic world, presenting scarcely 

 a semblance either of animal or vegetable life. Naviga- 

 tion was rendered more arduous, from the entire irregu- 

 larity of the compass, now evidently approaching to the 

 magnetic pole, and showing an excess of variation 

 which they vainly attempted to measure, so that the 

 binnacles were laid aside as useless lumber. 



They sailed a hundred and twenty miles up this inlet, 

 and its augmenting width inspired them with correspond- 

 ing hopes ; when, with extreme consternation, they 

 suddenly perceived the ice to diverge from its parallel 

 course, running close in with a point of land which 

 appeared to form the southern extremity of the eastern 



