242 A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY 
be accounted for, except by supposing that the 
coast has extended its former limits. But my ob- 
ject being that of stating facts, I shall avoid enter- 
ing any farther into these conjectures, for fear of 
drawing wrong conclusions. On returning to the 
tents this morning, we found an officer and three 
men there, who were sent out to assist us in taking 
the tents, &c., on board, there being hopes, at 
length, of leaving Winter Harbour ; for all the ice 
on it is now broke up, and drifting about from 
one side to the other, according to the direction 
of the wind. We started at three o’clock in the 
afternoon, and got on board by eight o’clock in 
the evening. 
Wednesday, 26th. —'The wind being from the 
southward this forenoon, all hands were employed 
warping the ships out towards the mouth of the 
harbour, where we anchored, the entrance being 
as yet choked up with ice; but, as we know that 
there is clear water along shore outside, this ob- 
struction, we may reasonably expect, will soon be 
removed by the first fresh breeze of northerly 
wind. é 
Friday, 28th. — We are still detained by the 
ice above-mentioned, which has been thrown up, 
by the late southerly wind, into large hummocks 
on the reef, at the south-east side of the en- 
trance of the harbour. Our passage, indeed, is 
not over that reef, but the ice that has grounded - 
on it, seems to offer obstruction in its passage 
outward, to that which is in the harbour. We 
saw a large seal on the ice to-day, but he lay so 
near the edge of the piece on which he was, that 
