AND CHANNEL TO REGENT S INLET. 425 



strong inferences in favour of the existence of a 

 southern channel to Regent's Inlet. On this sub- 

 ject it may perhaps seem idle now to speculate; 

 but, had I not known of Captain Ross's return, 

 and it had thus been our duty to follow the 

 eastern rather than the western passage, there 

 seemed no obstacle to prevent our doing so. 

 We must have been carried nearer to the Vic- 

 tory, and thus, with the permission of Pro- 

 vidence, we should have been enabled, had it 

 been so required, to execute some part of the 

 humane project in which the expedition ori- 

 ginated. 



I shall not attempt to describe what were 

 my feelings at finding my endeavours baffled 

 in every quarter but the one with which (how- 

 ever interesting as regarded the trending of the 

 land) I had no concern. When the mind has 

 been made up to encounter disasters and re- 

 verses, and has fixed a point as the zero of its 

 scale, however for a time it may be depressed 

 by doubts and difficulties, it will mount up 

 again with the first gleam of hope for the 

 future ; but, in this instance, there was no ex- 

 pedient by which we could overcome the ob- 

 stacles before us: every resource was exhausted, 

 and it was vain to expect that any efforts, how- 

 ever strenuous, could avail against the close- 

 wedged ice, and the constant fogs which en- 



