32 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. July 



Feeling our way carefully along and trusting 

 entirely to the chart, for our Greenland pilot became 

 at a loss in the fog, we entered Upernivik Harbour, 

 and anchored at five in the morning, before any of the 

 residents knew of our arrival : indeed the fog was so 

 dense that the ships approached within a hundred 

 yards of the settlement before it was sighted. We 

 found two or three small icebergs aground on the bank 

 forming the only shallow water anchorage, where they 

 occupied a considerable part of the available space. 

 This bank from its steepness is in all probability the 

 moraine of an ancient glacier. In the early season 

 before the floe ice has been finally driven off to sea, 

 the anchorage can scarcely be considered a protected 

 one, for floating ice must frequently necessitate a 

 change in the ship's position. 



We met at Upernivik Governor Fliescher and 

 ' Sophie ' his wife ; the latter the considerate friend of 

 all English voyagers since the first of the Franklin 

 Search Expeditions. I had the pleasure of presenting 

 her with a thoughtful present of crockery from Sir 

 Leopold M'Clintock. 



I am afraid that few of the transient visitors to 

 these North Greenland settlements think of the dreary 

 winters which the Danish inhabitants must necessarily 

 pass. Disco and Eitenbenk are in the same latitude as 

 Igloolik, where Sir Edward Parry wintered between 

 1821 and 1823, and as King William's Land, where 

 Franklin's ships were lost. Upernivik is very little 

 south of Lancaster Sound, where so many expeditions 

 have passed their winters. With a well found naval 

 expedition newly arrived from southern climes the 





