13i ARCTIC PERPLEXITIES. Chap. VIII. 



both to the east and west there is much clear 

 water. Exactly at this spot Captain Penny was 

 similarly detained by a nip in August, 1850. 

 Although progress is denied to us at present, 

 yet it is an unspeakable relief to have got out 

 of the drifting ice. 



I have passed very many anxious days in 

 Melville Bay, but hardly any of them weighed 

 so heavily upon me as yesterday. There was the 

 broad, clear land-water within a third of a mile 

 of me, clear weather, and a fair breeze blowing. 

 The intervening nip worked sufficiently with 

 wind and tide to keep one in suspense ; it 

 nearly opened at high water, but closed again 

 with the ebb tide. I thought of the week 

 already spent in struggling amongst drifting 

 floes, and was haunted by visions of everything 

 horrible — gales, ice-crushing, &c. Nor was it 

 consoling to reflect that all the sailing ships as 

 well as the steamers might have actually slipped 

 past us. In fact, I must acknowledge that 

 anxiety and weariness had worked me up into 

 a state of burning impatience and of bitter cha- 

 grin at being so repeatedly baffled in all my 

 efforts by the varying yet continual perplex- 

 ities of our position. The only difference in 

 favour of our prospects over those of the past 

 year consisted in our having arrived here two 



