July, 1857. ORKNEYS AND GREENLAND. 11 



screams and unintelligible dialect of the Pilots' crew, the 

 shrill cry of innumerable sea-birds, the howling breeze and 

 angry sea, made us feel as if we had suddenly awakened in 

 Greenland itself. 



The southern extremity of that ice-locked continent be- 

 came visible on the 12th. It is quaintly named Cape 

 Farewell ; but whether by some sanguine outward-bound 

 adventurer who fancied that in leaving Greenland behind 

 him he had already secured his passage to Cathay ; or 

 whether by the wearied homesick mariner, barely escaping 

 in his shattered bark from the grasp of winter, and firmly 

 purposing to bid a long farewell to this cheerless land, 

 history altogether fails to enlighten us. 



From January until July this coast is usually rendered 

 unapproachable by a broad margin of heavy ice, which drifts 

 there from the vicinity of Spitzbergen, and, lapping round 

 the Cape, extends alongshore to the northward about as 

 far as Baal's River, a distance of 250 miles. Although it 

 effectually blockades the ports of South Greenland for the 

 greater part of the summer, and is justly dreaded by 

 the captains of the Greenland traders, it confers important 

 benefits upon the Greenlander by bearing to his shores 

 immense numbers of seals and many bears. The same 

 current which conveys hither all this ice is also freighted 

 with a scarcely less valuable supply of driftwood from the 

 Siberian rivers. 



About this time, one of my crew showing symptoms of 

 diseased lungs, I determined to embrace the earliest oppor- 

 tunity of sending him home out of a climate so fatal to those 

 who are thus affected ; and having learnt from Mr. Petersen, 

 who had quitted Greenland only in April last, that a vessel 

 would veiy soon leave Frederickshaab for Copenhagen, I 

 resolved to go to that place in order to catch this homeward- 

 bound ship. 



