472 Thirty Years - 
beach by a storm. The roof of the house received some necessary 
repairs. Having embarked some coals and stores we stood in need of 
and touched at Cape Hotham on the 16th, we sailed down Peel Strait 
for 25 miles on the 17th, but finding the remainder of this channel 
covered by unbroken ice, I determined to make for Bellot’s Strait on 
19th of August, examined into supplies remaining at Port Leopold, 
and left there a whale-boat which we brought away from Cape Hotham 
for the purpose, so as to aid us in our retreat should we be obliged 
eventually to abandon the Fox. The steam launch had been forced 
higher up on the beach, and somewhat damaged by the ice, Prince 
Regent’s Inlet was unusually free from ice, but very little was seen 
during our run down to Brentford Bay, which we reached on the 20th 
August. Bellot’s Strait, which communicates with the Western sea, 
averages one mile in width, by 17 or 18 miles in length. At this time 
it was filled with drift ice, but as the season advanced became per- 
fectly clear; its shores are in many places faced with lofty granite 
cliffs, and some of the adjacent hills rise 1,600 feet; the tides are very 
strong, running six or seven knots at the springs. On the 6th of Sep- 
tember we passed through Bellot’s Strait without obstruction, and se- 
cured the ship to fixed ice across its western outlet. From here, until 
the 27th, when I deemed it necessary to retreat into winter quarters, 
we constantly watched the movements of the ice in the western sea or 
channel, In mid-channel it was broken up and drifting about; grad- 
ually the proportion of water increased, until at length the ice which 
intervened was reduced to three or four miles in width. But this was 
firmly held fast by numerous islets, and withstood the violence of the 
autumn gales. It was tantalising beyond description thus to watch 
from day to day the free water which we could not reach, and which 
washed the rocky shore a few miles to the southward of us! 
During the autumn attempts were made to carry our depots of pro- 
visions towards the magnetic pole, but these almost entirely failed in 
consequence of the disruption of the ice to the southward. Lieutenant 
Hobson returned with his sledge parties in November, after much suf- 
fering from severe weather, and imminent peril on one occasion, when 
the ice upon which they were encamped became detached from the 
shore, and drifted off to leeward: with them. 
Our wintering position was at the east entrance to Bellot’s Strait in 
a snug harbor, which I have named Port Kennedy, afler my predeces- 
sor in these waters, the commander of one of Lady Franklin’s former 
searching expeditions, Although vegetation was tolerably abundant, 
and our two Esquimaux hunters, Mr. Peterson, and several sportsmen 
were constantly on the alert, yet the resources of the country during 
eleven months and a half, only yielded us eight reindeer, two bears, 
eighteen seals and a few water fowl and ptarmigan. 
The winter was unusually cold and stormy. Arrangements were 
completed during the winter for carrying out our intended plan of 
search ; I folt it to be my duty personally to visit Marshal Island, and 
