SUFFERINGS OF ROSS’S CREW. 505 
moved on this occasion; for, after having served forty-two years in 
thirty-five different ships, this was the first he had ever been 
obliged to abandon as a wreck. 
Provisions and boats had now to be transported over long 
tracts of rugged ice, and as their great weight rendered it im- 
possible to carry all at once, the same ground had to be 
traversed several times. ‘Terrific snow storms retarded the 
progress of the wanderers, and invincible obstacles forced them 
to make long circuits. Thus it happened that during the first 
month of their pilgrimage through the wilderness, although 
they had travelled 329 miles, they only gained thirty in a direct 
line. 
On the 9th of June, James Ross, the leading spirit of the 
expedition, accompanied by two men and with a fortnight’s pro- 
visions, left the main body to ascertain the state of the boats 
and supplies at Fury Beach. Returning, they met their com- 
rades on the 25th of June, and gratified them with the intelli- 
gence, that, though they had found three of the boats washed 
away, enough still remained for their purpose, and that all the 
provisions were in good condition. 
On the Ist of July the whole party arrived at Fury Beach, 
whence, after having repaired the weather-worn boats, they set 
out again on the Ist of August, and, after much buffeting among 
the ice in their frail shallops, reached the mouth of the inlet by 
the end of themonth. But here they were doomed to disappoint- 
ment; for, after several fruitless attempts to run along Barrow’s 
Strait, the obstructions from the ice obliged them to haul the 
boats on shore and pitch their tents. 
Barrow’s Strait was found from repeated surveys to be one 
impenetrable mass of ice. After lingering here till the third 
week in September, it was unanimously agreed that their only 
resource was to fall back again on the stores at Fury Beach, and 
spend their fourth winter in that dreary solitude. Here they 
sheltered their canvass tent with a wall of snow, and setting up an 
extra stove made themselves tolerably comfortable until the in- 
creasing severity of the winter, and the rigour of the cold, added to 
the tempestuous weather, made them perfect prisoners, and sorely 
tried their patience. Scurvy now began to appear, and several 
of the men fell victims to the scourge. At the same time cares 
for the future darkened the gloom of their situation, for, if they 
