WESTWARD WITH THE SHIP. 45 



large lanes, but we did not do much there, and soon went out 

 again. The ice was drifting at a tremendous pace, and navigation 

 in such waters was no easy matter. No sooner had we run our- 

 selves in between two floes, with the intention of backing to gain 

 an impetus, than we had the ship lying across the lane, broadside 

 on, and away she would be swept just as if she were a fragment of 

 ice. By degrees, however, we grew more cautious, though we did 

 not better our progress thereby, as the ice was drifting full speed 

 in exactly the opposite direction from our course. Sometimes we 

 lay boring the ice for an hour or two at a time ; then, in the end, 

 drifted just the way we did not want to go ! 



Still, even that day we advanced a litfle. In the north-west 

 the dark water-sky still beckoned and enticed us on. We began 

 to grow impatient despite our hope and firm belief that we should 

 be able to force our way up to the open water of which it was 

 the sign. 



On August 14, in the evening, the wind went round rather 

 more to the north, and suddenly the ice jammed still closer. Things 

 then came to a dead-lock, and we drifted back quickly the same 

 way we had come. During the first twenty-four hours we lost 

 way considerably ; but matters were even worse when the wind 

 went over still more to the north, increasing the drift towards 

 land. The position was not improved when the thin cakes of ice 

 began to run one under the other, in layers of many thicknesses ; 

 while the big floes, which before had surrounded us, were now for 

 the most part broken up into small pieces. Then, as if our diffi- 

 culties had not been great enough before, the cold set in and young 

 ice formed in the lanes. 



It was now a case of waiting, it appeared. We sounded once 

 or twice in a watch, and made use of the opportunity to take a few 

 samples of water, and the temperatures at varying depths, also to 

 do a little dredging. Nature here was quite dead. I do not think 

 we saw a single seal north of Cardigan Strait, and the land did 

 not appear to have more to offer than the sea. 



Meanwhile we drifted more and more towards land, a little to 

 the east, perhaps. We thought that we had every prospect of 

 getting free some time during the course of the autumn, but 



