BELLOT. 379 



to cut their way through ; and sometimes they came to 

 banks of hard-drifted snow sloping down the face of the 

 cliffs, and leaving only an inclined plane to drag the 

 eledge over. On one occasion Bellot was pitched head 

 foremost into one of these huge snow-drifts, leaving 

 only six inches of his protruding legs to tell of his 

 whereabouts. 



The. first night, not having time to erect a snow-hut, 

 owing to the lateness of the hour, they slept in the tent, 

 but found it very small and uncomfortable ; so that, on 

 the following evening, they stopped for the night, after 

 eight hours' walking, and built their snow-hut at the 

 foot of a high precipice, with a perpendicular mass of 

 stranded ice at the bottom, which served for a gable. 

 The ice, which was undergoing a " pressure," groaned, 

 ground, and crashed around them all night, and finally 

 left them in the morning with a pile at least thirty feet 

 high, within a few yards of the encampment. 



On the 8th, being within a short distance of Fury 

 Beach, it was resolved to leave the sledge and two of 

 the men, while Kennedy and Bellot, with one man, 

 should proceed forward unencumbered. Accordingly 

 they started, and got over the ground much more rap- 

 idly than before. That night they reached Fury Beach, 

 and stood upon the spot around which, for several days 

 past, their anxious hopes had been circling ; but all 

 was still and desolate as the grave. " Every object dis- 

 tinguished by the moonlight in the distance," says Ken 

 nedy, "became animated, to our imaginations, into the 

 forms of our long-absent countrymen ; for, had they 

 been imprisoned anywhere in the Arctic seas, within a 

 reasonable distance of Fury Beach, here, we felt as- 

 sured, some of them, at least, would have been now. 

 But, alas for these fond hopes ! ; 



It was with sad feelings and slow steps that Ken- 



