288 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



J822. somewhat choked in an hour or two, we liad no less than ten fathoms during 

 August. 1 . • !• 1 



'■^rvs^ the iiiq;ht, aiul altered our position very little. 



Our situation, liowever, was still a very precarious one, as any movement 

 of the ice to leeward must place us directly between the points of the islands, 

 where the breadtli did not exceed a mile, and from the nature of the land 

 the passas^e was probably a shoal one. On the weather clearing up on the 

 Thur. 1. morning of the 1st of August wc found that such a movement was just about 

 to take place, the passage being already nearly cleared, and (lie ice around 

 the ship beginning to give us notice of some alteration. Soon after a favour- 

 able slack took place, when, preferring the chance of sailing to that of driv- 

 ing through the unknown channel, which there was no time to sound, wc 

 cast off and, being guided by the leads and the colour of tlie water, ran safely 

 through in five fathoms and a quarter, at the distance of one-third of a mile 

 from Tangle Island, and immediately gained the open sea beyond. Just at 

 this time we observed the llecla standing towards us and re-joined her at a 

 quarter before eleven, when Captain Lyon came on board to communicate 

 the result of his late journey, of which he furnished me with the following 

 account, accompanied by a sketch of the lands he had seen, as far as the 

 extremely unfavourable state of the weather woidd permit. 



J ] 05 " Accompanied by George Dunn, 1 found Toolemak on landing, who 

 welcomed us to his tent in wiiich for two hours it was scarcely possible to 

 move in consequence of the crowd who came to gaze at us. A new deer- 

 skin was .spread for me, and Dunn having found a corner for himself, we 

 all lay down to sleej), not however until our host, his wife, their little 

 .son, and a dog, had turned in beside me under cover of a fine warm skin, all 

 naked except the lady, who with the decorum natural to her sex had kept on 

 a part of her clothes. It rained incessantly during the night and the morn- 

 ing of the 26tli was in consequence very unfavourable for our purposed ex- 

 pedition. At ten A.M. we started and found the .sledge on a beach near 

 the southern ice. Four men were to accompany us on this vehicle, and the 

 good-natured fellows volunteered to carry our luggage. A second sledge 

 was under the charge of three boys who had eight dogs, while our team 

 consisted of eleven. The weather was so thick that at times we could not 

 see a quarter of a mile before us but yet went rapidly forward to the WNW., 

 when, alter about six hours, we came to high bold land and a great num- 



