Chap. VI. CAPTAIN PARRY'S SECOND VOYAGE. 159 



place for the security of the ships for the winter, 

 could no longer be doubted nor delayed. A small 

 island lying off the northern point of the entrance 

 into Lyon's Inlet was agreed upon by the two Com- 

 manders, being found to afford good anchorage on 

 its southern coast. " We now," says Parry, " for 

 the first time walked on board the ships ; and before 

 night we had them moved into their places by 

 sawing a canal for two or three hundred yards 

 through the ice." He adds, 



" In reviewing the events of this our first season of navi- 

 gation, and considering what progress we had made towards 

 the attainment of our main object, it was impossible, how- 

 ever trifling that progress might appear upon the chart, not 

 to experience considerable satisfaction. Small as our actual 

 advance had been towards Behring's Strait, the extent of 

 coast newly discovered and minutely explored in pursuit of 

 our objects, in the course of the lasteight weeks, amounted to 

 more than 200 leagues, nearly half of which belonged to the 

 continent of North America. This service, notwithstanding 

 our constant exposure to the risks which intricate, shoal, 

 and unknown channels, a sea loaded with ice, and a rapid 

 tide concurred in presenting, had providentially been effected 

 without injury to the ships, or suffering to the officers and 

 men ; and we had now once more met with tolerable se- 

 curity for the ensuing winter, when obliged to relinquish 

 further operations for the season.- Above all, however, I 

 derived the most sincere satisfaction from a conviction of 

 having left no part of the coast from Repulse Bay eastward 

 in a state of doubt as to its connexion with the continent. 

 And as the mainland now in sight from the hills extended 

 no farther to the eastward than about a N.N.E. bearing, we 

 ventured to indulge a sanguine hope of our being very near 



