420 SLOW PROGRESS. [CHAP. VI. 



Charles Island, and thence east into the Atlantic, 

 as we found to be the case in fact. 



During the remainder of the day, and until 

 noon of the 27th, the wind was light, but still 

 strong enough to enable us to sail and bore 

 among extremely heavy ice, which, from pieces 

 of moderate dimensions, all at once changed its 

 character to enormous floes, completely blocking 

 up the passage across. We could therefore only 

 coast along them, as well as the impediments 

 permitted.* Our progress, therefore, was neces- 

 sarily slow ; but after 9 h p. m. a casual slack 

 taking place, the ship forced her way a few 

 miles ahead, striking with startling violence, but 

 yet, as on former occasions, without increasing 

 her leakage, though a great deal of oakum had 

 worked from out the seams under the counter. 

 The ice was of an extraordinary thickness, and 

 had, moreover, long projecting tongues two or 

 three fathoms below the surface, which so ob- 

 structed our course that, though the ship's head 

 pointed often N.N.E., we only made good a 

 S.E. line of direction. By midnight the entire 

 bodv of ice closed in and beset us ; and the 

 appearance, at the same time, of a faint aurora, 

 brought about the recollection of last autumn. 



* Two pieces of ice with fragments, refuse, &c. passed us. 

 They were conjectured to have come from one of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company's ships probably passing along the north coast. 



