WALRUS-CATCHING. NEW WATERS. 209 



Monument,* and steered west through Lady Ann Strait. Here we 

 had a heavy sea from the south-west with thick weather ; though 

 once, when the curtain of fog was drawn aside, we caught a glimpse 

 of Cobourg Island, and farther up the strait, North Devon. Cobourg 

 did not look very inviting as a place of residence for human beings. 

 Black perpendicular walls of rock fell abruptly into the sea ; 

 everything in the shape of a gap or valley was filled with 

 snow and ice; and we were not able to discover a single green 

 spot. If Cobourg looked little alluring, North Devon was less so, 

 and it could not even boast the wild landscape of the former place 

 with its riven mountains and peaks; we saw nothing but snow and 

 ice between monotonous rounded hills. 



There was no drift-ice in the strait, but there were numbers of 

 icebergs, and it was not until we were farther west that we came 

 on the pack in drift. Westward, along Ellesmere Land stretched 

 a long narrow strip of ice, but outside North Devon the sea was 

 almost free of ice. 



All the way we went were large flocks of guillemots splashing 

 in the leads. We were sorry we had not been here in the nesting 

 season, for what a haul of eggs we should then have got ! There 

 was nothing to be done now, for the eggs had turned into young 

 birds, and a swimming school was going on which seemed to 

 interest both young and old. I had never before seen so many 

 of the larger sea-birds congregated together; there were simply 

 myriads of guillemots, black guillemots, gulls, and eider-duck. 

 Cobourg did not seem to inspire them with any sense of fear, 

 but had just the contrary effect. 



We now set our course for Sir Eobert Inglis Peak, the farthest 

 point reached by Inglefield in 1852, and where, according to his 

 own account, he saw land trending towards the north. We had a 

 heavy sea and thick weather, and as we met close ice during the 

 night we had to lie to for a time. We then steered south towards 

 North Devon, where the waters were free enough of ice, but when 

 we tried to shape the course north, towards Ellesmere Land, there 

 was such a short sea that we could hardly turn the vessel; then, 

 to our disgust, we met the drift-ice again half-way across. 



* A natural rock, but which looks like human handiwork. 

 VOL. I. P 



