242 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. VIII. 



under particular circumstances, his instructions 

 authorized him to return to England, it was high 

 time to make up his mind, which was to him a 

 point speedily decided. " I could not," he says, 

 " have a moment's hesitation as to the propriety of 

 pushing on as far as the present season would per- 

 mit, and then giving a fair trial, during the whole 

 of next summer, to the route I was directed by my 

 instructions to pursue; and in this view Com- 

 mander Hoppner entirely concurred. The fact 

 is, that the summer or season was already ex- 

 pended before they got into the inlet, and might 

 probably, also, be expended in the following year 

 before it should be found practicable to get out of 

 their winter quarters ; unless indeed, as will shortly 

 appear, these quarters were so favourably circum- 

 stanced as to admit of an early departure from them. 

 It would be useless to enter into a detail of the 

 trials of temper and patience they were compelled 

 to undergo, after this decision ; one of which, how- 

 ever, may be stated. In a strong current setting to 

 the eastward at the rate of two miles an hour, 

 without a chance of stemming it, and beset as they 

 were in young ice, during an unusually dark night 

 of nine or ten hours' duration, with a heavy fall of 

 snow, they found themselves utterly in a helpless 

 state. " The consequence was, that, when we made 

 the land on the morning of the 23rd, we had been 

 drifted the incredible distance of eight or nine 



