XL] AGAIN AMONGST THE ICE. 173 



barrier of packed ice, running due east and west, as far as 

 the eye could reach. 



What was now to be done ? If a continuous field of ice 

 lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what 

 would be the chance of getting to the land by going further 

 north? Now that we had received ocular proof of the 

 veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first particular, 

 was it likely that we should have the luck to find the 

 remainder of his story untrue ? According to the track he 

 had jotted down for me on the chart, the ice in front 

 stretched right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall 

 of ice which we had seen running to the north, from the 

 upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed since 

 he had actually ascertained the impracticability of reaching 

 a higher latitude, — what likelihood could there be of a chan- 

 nel having been opened up to the northward during so short 

 an interval ? Such was the series of insoluble problems by 

 which I posed myself, as we stood vainly smacking our lips 

 at the island, which lay so tantalizingly beyond our reach. 



Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear, it 

 would not do to throw a chance away ; so I determined to 

 put the schooner round on the other tack, and run west- 

 wards along the edge of the ice, until we found ourselves 

 again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore, a last adieu 

 to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers very appropriately 

 christened one of the higher hills in Bear Island, we suffered 

 it to melt back into a fog, — out of which, indeed, no part 

 of the land had ever more than partially emerged, — and 

 with no very sanguine expectations as to the result, sailed 

 west away towards Greenland. During the next four-and- 

 twenty hours we ran along the edge of the ice, in nearly a 

 due westerly direction, without observing the slightest indi- 

 cation of anything approaching to an opening towards the 

 North. It was weary work, scanning that seemingly inter- 

 minable barrier, and listening to the melancholy roar of 

 waters on its icy shore. 



At last, after having come about T40 miles since leaving 



