CHAP. VI.] HILLY COAST. 413 



swains. At noon Charles Island bore W. by N. 

 about eight leagues distant. There was much 

 drift ice incommoding us in the afternoon, when 

 the ship was hauled alongside the floe to allow 

 of our filling our tanks with fresh water. There 

 must have been a perfect block to the east ; for, 

 though the wind was westerly, and, consequently, 

 down the Straits, we moved only to the south- 

 ward with the ice, which took us nearer and 

 nearer the shore. About 6 h 30 m there was a 

 probability of getting three or four miles to the 

 south-east, whereupon we cast off from the floe 

 and made sail, and, having accomplished the 

 distance at 8 h p. m., we again made fast to a 

 large floe. This had certainly been exposed to 

 heavy pressure, for many blocks and masses 

 of ice were thrown upon it, to the height of 

 fifteen or twenty feet. 



July 22d, presented one glare of ice to the north- 

 east and south-east from shore to shore, and at 

 noon, we found by the observations that our 

 drift had rather carried us in shore ; so that we 

 had now an opportunity of beholding the coast in 

 all its frowning grandeur. It rose into high 

 hills, deserving the name of mountains, and 

 these were broken into numerous vallies, that, 

 after shelving in some places towards the sea, 

 terminated abruptly in fearful precipices and 

 perpendicular cliffs, accessible only to birds. 



