parry's polar attempt. 193 



James Ross in command of the other. Thus 

 appointed, and with provision and clothing for 

 seventy days, the party set out for Little Table 

 Island, where they left a reserve supply of pro- 

 vision, as they had done at Walden Island, to 

 fall back upon in case of necessity. 



From Table Island, the most northern known 

 land upon the Globe, Sir Edward Parry proceeded 

 at once to the performance of one of the most 

 singular and perilous journeys of its kind ever 

 undertaken, except perhaps that of Baron Wan- 

 gle, upon a similar enterprise to the northward of 

 Behring's Straits. " Let but any one conceive 

 for a moment the situation of two open boats, 

 laden with seventy days' provisions and clothing 

 for twenty-eight men, in the midst of a sea 

 covered nearly with detached masses and floes of 

 ice, over which these boats were to be dragged, 

 sometimes up one side of a rugged mass, and 

 down the other, sometimes across the lanes of 

 water that separate them, frequently over a sur- 

 face covered with deep snow, or through pools of 

 water. Let him bear in mind, that the men had 

 little or no chance of any other supply of provi- 

 sion than that which they carried with them, cal- 

 culated as just sufficient to sustain life, and con- 

 sider what their situation would have been in 

 the event, by no means an improbable one, of 



o 



