OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 199 



was the sea which our gentlemen had then seen, and that both this, and the '^22. 

 blink observed by myself, might be considered as confirming very satisfac- 



torily the accounts given by the Esquimaux. 



The barometer rose to 30.41 inches in the night, being the maximum indica- 

 tion registered since the 18th of September preceding. It was so far, however, 

 from being the precursor of any thing unusually fine in the weather, that it 

 blew a fresh breeze from the W.N.W. on the 26th, which was followed by over- Tues. 26. 

 cast weather and small snow. To this succeeded a gale from the northward, 

 which came on with considerable violence on the 27th, and continued to Wed. 27. 

 blow incessantly during the two following days, accompanied by a high 

 snow-drift. The inclemency of the weather preventing the Esquimaux from 

 going out to fish, they were once more badly off for food and fuel. A ge- 

 neral supply of bread-dust was therefore furnished them from the ships, 

 which they now had learned to consider so much a thing of course, that few 

 of them thought it necessary even to go through the forms of their accus- 

 tomed Coyinnd (thanks). Siokobeut, alias the Commodore, was detected in 

 stealing a piece of beef from the Hecla's quarter, placing his little boy 

 Toonek to look out for any person coming. I do not know whether hunger 

 may not be considered some excuse for this act of petty larceny, but at the 

 time we thought it aggravated, in some degree, by their having just before 

 been fed with bread-dust on board. 



When the weather moderated, which was not till the night of the 29th, 

 we found that the ice had once more separated in the offing, and had even 

 made some encroachments into the bay, the open water being now within 

 two hundred paces of the ships' sterns. It is certain indeed that, but for 

 the numerous grounded masses which had fixed themselves round the shores 

 of the bay, and which like so many piles held fast the floe into which we 

 were frozen, we should long ere this time have been drifted out to sea by 

 the total disruption of the ice from this part of the land. This observation 

 is only meant to apply to a bay which, like our present one, is in the imme- 

 diate neighbourhood of a part of the sea that, from some local cause, is 

 frequently open during the winter, and where very high and rapid tides 

 greatly favour the separation of ice from the shores. Wliere on the con- 

 trary the tides are small, there is reason to believe that a ship once frozen 

 into a bay in these regions, however exposed it may be, may be just as se- 

 cure during the winter as in the most sheltered harbour. 



As a method, and the only one that occurred to me, of trying the average Sun. 31. 



