122 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. IV. 



last-mentioned subject in high latitudes, an account 

 of his voyages and operations will be resumed here- 

 after. 



It may, perhaps, be deemed presumptuous in a 

 landsman venturing to differ from so expert and 

 complete a seaman as Commander Parry; but it is 

 under a conviction that he will not be displeased 

 at, but take in good part, a few desultory remarks, 

 though not exactly correspondent with his own 

 opinion. " Our experience," he says, " I think has 

 clearly shown that the navigation of the Polar seas 

 can never be performed with any degree of certainty 

 without a continuity of land. It was only by watch- 

 ing the occasional openings between the ice and the 

 shore that our late progress to the westward was 

 effected ; and had the land continued in the desired 

 direction, there can be no question that we should 

 have continued to advance, however slowly, to- 

 wards the completion of our enterprise." The objec- 

 tion about to be offered is not to the " slow advance," 

 but to the chance of no advance at all, and to the 

 extreme hazard of the loss of the ship and crew, 

 which had nearly happened in the present instance, 

 and did actually happen to the ship on a future 

 occasion, by a nip, or rub, or pressure between the 

 ice and the shore ; to say nothing of the constant 

 apprehension, the anxiety, and incessant threatening 

 of momentary destruction, which occurred along 

 the whole coast of Melville Island, and the frequent 



