NA VIGA TION OF BAFFIN 'S BA Y. 491 



the horizon since the 10th May— would not weary him, for he was to see 

 what Purchase calls "an hunting spectacle, of the greatest chase which 

 nature yieldeth, I mean the killing of the whale." 



Captain Penny had a strong conviction of the value and importance of 

 sailing early for, and arriving early at, the whaling grounds. He considered 

 that if he could get to Pond's Bay in or about the first week in July, he 

 should fall in with a run of " fish ; " and here he was, hanging in the breath- 

 less air at the entrance of the bay on the 9th. Already he was eager to be 

 at work, and he talked of sending the boats into the bay to try and capture 

 one or two of the leviathans of these waters. His usual luck seems to have 

 attended him, for on the day of his arrival in the bay he caught " two fish at 

 a fall." On sailing slowly into the bay. Penny saw that he had not been 

 first in the race to the fishing ground, and that he had been preceded by a 

 vessel which turned out to be the " St Andrew" of Aberdeen. The " St 

 Andrew " had got through the barrier of ice at the north end of Disco, inside, 

 or to the eastward of Hare Island, at the mouth of Waigat Strait, and pro- 

 ceeding northward, had found open water almost the whole way through 

 Melville Bay in the beginning of June. She was only once obliged to cut a 

 dock as a protection against moving ice, and she arrived in Pond's Bay on 

 the 10th June, a month before the " Advice." She had not however killed, 

 or even seen, any whales. " I was annoyed at this," writes Goodsir, " or 

 rather at my own bad fortune in our ship not having got through at the same 

 time, merely in consequence of our not succeeding in getting through the 

 barrier of ice at Hare Island when we first attempted it. It was thick 

 weather at the time, and the ' St Andrew ' took the inside of the island, 

 whilst we tried the outside. She succeeded, but we had to put back. The 

 result is seen ; she was at the west side of Baffin's Bay a full month before 

 any of the other ships, and had little or no difficulty in effecting it. This 

 proves that Mr Penny is right in the opinion he has so often expressed to 

 me, that the earlier in June the passage through Melville Bay is attempted, 

 the easier will it be effected. He has pointed out to me that the prevailing 

 winds during the month of May and the beginning of June, are from the 

 north or north-east, and that the eff'ects of these are to drive the ice to the 

 southward, consequently slackening it in Melville Bay and the northern part 

 of the ' middle ice,' and thus rendering the passage through it easier during 

 the earlier part of the month of June than it is about the end of it : and that 

 it is still more difficult during July, from the prevailing winds then being 

 from the south and south-west, their effect being to pack the ice into 

 Melville Bay. Going over every year from 1820, he has shown to me that 

 the earlier the passage has been attempted, the easier it has heen ; and that if 

 the whale ships have been delayed to the southwards, from any of the many 

 causes which are apt to impede them, they have always had proportionate 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



