SEAKCH FOR FRANKLIN. 288 



They had on board, as interpreter, Petersen, one of 

 the party who accompanied Kane on that expedition, 

 whose enthusiasm in the cause had led him to join 

 M'Clintock from Copenhagen, just before the yacht left 

 Aberdeen, though he had only returned six days pre- 

 viously from Greenland, after a year's absence from his- 

 family. Here the last letters for home were landed, and 

 the vessel's head turned seaward. 



The drifting ice, which invariably obstructs the passage 

 to Baffin's Bay, was reached next day; and after an 

 attempt to find a middle passage, in the course of which 

 they were once caught in the margin of the floe, and only 

 escaped by the assistance of the screw, it was resolved to 

 look for an opening on the north. On the 12th, they 

 reached Melville Bay, in lat. 79, but found the whole sea 

 to the 'northward blocked up by the ice. 



It was too late in the year to retrace their steps with a 

 reasonable hope of reaching Barrow's Strait before the 

 season closed ; and in the hope of the autumnal winds 

 drifting southwards the pack, and so opening up a passage, 

 they anchored to a berg, and, after three days' calm, 

 were gladdened by their anticipations being realised, and 

 finding themselves steaming along a widening lane of 

 water through the ice to the north-west. But on the 

 following evening the pack closed in around them, and 

 they were cut off from all power either of advancing or 

 retreating. 



The drift next day continued to the north-west, and 

 carried the little vessel, of course, along with it; but OQ 



