June, 1858. NEARLY CAUGHT IN THE PACK. 109 



there is some slight movement in the latter, but not enough 

 to let us pass through. 



Twelve or eighteen miles to the south there is a cluster of 

 bergs, in all probability aground upon our "70 fathom bank " 

 of last September. The ice-field appears to rest against 

 them, as both to the east and west there is much clear water. 

 Exactly at this spot Captain Penny was similarly detained 

 by a nip in August, 1850. Although progress is denied to 

 us at present, yet it is an unspeakable relief to have got out 

 of the drifting ice. 



[ have passed very many anxious days in Melville Bay, 

 but hardly any of them weighed so heavily upon me as 

 yesterday. Such a lovely day, so clear and bright, a sky 

 intensely blue, and every distant object remarkably distinct ; 

 it was a day above all days to string one's nerves for unusual 

 action; and the longed-for broad land-water was there — 

 within a third of a mile — gently rippled by a pleasant fair 

 breeze. But the nip — the intervening nip, — it worked suffi- 

 ciently with wind and tide to keep one in suspense ; it nearly 

 opened at high water, but closed again with the ebb tide. I 

 thought of the week already spent in struggling amongst 

 drifting floes, and was haunted by visions of everything 

 horrible — gales, fogs, ice-crushing, &c. Nor was it consoling 

 to reflect that all the whaling ships might have actually 

 slipped past us. In fact a prolonged condition of unrest, of 

 intense mental and physical strain, had worked me up into a 

 state of extreme anxiety at being so repeatedly baffled in all 

 my efforts by the varying, yet continual perplexities of our 

 position. 1 The only difference in favour of our prospects 

 over those of the past year consists in our having arrived 



1 To those having responsibility, Melville Bay navigation admits of 

 no rest ; the unquiet ice ever threatens, whilst constant daylight not 

 only seems to warn one against yielding to repose, but banishes for a 

 time the desire for natural rest. 



