July, 1857. DISCO FIORD. 19 



culty in towing the ship clear of the rocks ; for nearly half 

 an hour our position was most critical. 



July ^lst. — Anchored at Godhavn (or Lievely), in Disco, 

 for a few hours. I presented a letter from the Directors of 

 the Royal Greenland Company to the Inspector of North 

 Greenland, Mr. C. S. M. Olrik, authorising him to furnish 

 us with any needful supplies. Our only wants were sledge- 

 dogs and a native to manage them. We soon obtained ten 

 of the former, but were advised to go into Disco Fiord, 

 where many of the Esquimaux were busy in taking and 

 drying salmon-trout, and where one of the latter would most 

 probably be obtained. 



I was much pleased with Mr. Olrik's kind reception ot 

 me, and soon found him to be not only agreeable but well 

 informed. Born in Greenland of Danish parents, he is 

 thoroughly conversant with the language and habits of the 

 Esquimaux, and has devoted much of his leisure time in 

 collecting rare specimens of the animal, vegetable, and 

 mineral productions of the country. I came away enriched 

 by some fossils from the fossilized forest of Atanekerdluk, 

 also with specimens of native coal. 



It was here I met with the commanders of the late whalers 

 ' Gipsy ' and ' Undaunted,' of Peterhead, which had been 

 crushed by the ice in Melville Bay five or six weeks pre- 

 viously : all the other whalers had returned from the north 

 along the pack edge, and passed south of Disco. They said 

 that the ice in Melville Bay was all broken up, and that they 

 thought we should find but little difficulty at this late period 

 in passing through it into the North Water. 



Although the crews of the lost whalers were here, awaiting 

 a passage home in the Danish ship, yet I could not induce 

 any of them to volunteer for the ' Fox.' 



Leaving Godhavn in the afternoon with a native pilot, 

 we found ourselves some 10 or 12 miles up Disco Fiord at 



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