FLAXMAN S ISLAND. 253 



were scrupulously regarded; and had any strange 

 party been on this coast, we could not have failed to 

 discover them. With only one or two exceptions, we 

 always slept on shore, for it may be easily guessed 

 that our boats afforded little space or convenience for 

 repose ; and as until the middle of August we had 

 constant daylight, that during the night-hours being 

 very much like the gloom of smoky old London in a 

 mist, it would not have been easy for us to have 

 passed any animate objects unobserved or unob- 

 servant. 



Flaxman's Island, which was reached on the 16th, 

 appears, when approached from the westward, high 

 and bold ; but this is the character of the eastern 

 part only ; its western extreme is little higher than the 

 " Lion," and encompassed by small spits and shoals. 

 We landed in the afternoon on a nice gravelly beach 

 at the eastern end, where cliffs about forty feet high 

 rise abruptly from it, and on the summit of which 

 was found a human skull, and other bones. The 

 pack, which was heavy, lay close down upon the 

 northern shore of the island, the channel between 

 which and the main was also much crowded with drift 

 ice. Camden Bay, as viewed from the top of the cliff, 

 appeared to be completely blocked up with ice, and 

 we were somewhat apprehensive of a stoppage ; but 



