TO THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 129 
without the prospect of any benefit. We therefore 
got under weigh between nine and ten o’clock in the 
forenoon; and very much against our inclination, 
although to all clearly necessary, we stood to the 
eastward, in hopes of being able to reach the harbour 
that we passed on the sixth instant, before the ice got 
too strong for us to force through it. From noon until 
six o’clock in the evening, we were favoured with a fine 
breeze from the southward and westward, so that we 
got back a considerable distance ; but no sooner had 
the wind become light than our progress was stopped 
by the bay-ice, notwithstanding every effort was made 
to get through by breaking it up with capstan bars, 
and blocks of wood, and by rolling a boat amongst it 
under the ship’s bows. At the very time that our 
progress was thus arrested, the necessity of getting 
on became more evident than ever, for a large floe 
was observed to be moving to the westward with 
considerable velocity, and at the same time closing 
in with the land, from which we were not distant 
above a quarter of a mile. Our situation was there- 
fore a very precarious one indeed, but as it was impos- 
sible to avoid the danger that threatened us, we let 
go an anchor in ten fathoms of water, after being 
driven within less than a cable’s length of the shore. 
Here we awaited with great anxiety the approach of 
the floe, for although we were pressed towards the 
shore by it, we were not actually in contact with the 
floe itself, being carried along with the bay-ice 
which it impelled towards the land. Close to where 
we anchored there happened, very fortunately for us, 
to be a large hummock, or rather a pile of heavy 
pieces of ice aground, so that when the floe arrived, 
K 
