44 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



half-past six, when it was very little more than half ebb by the shore, there 

 were, in every direction, numberless shoals and islets, past which the tide 

 was rushing with all the violence and irregularity of a race, except in a 

 small channel, which, in the only part where a ship could have floated, 

 did not exceed three hundred yards in width. In such a channel, rendered, 

 as it was, doubly dangerous, by the rapid tide which rushed through it, and 

 which would render a ship perfectly unmanageable, it would have been 

 highly imprudent to risk a passage ; and as, under these circumstances, it 

 would have been a mere loss of time to continue the examination of this 

 place, whatever curiosity we might feel to ascertain its communications, I 

 determined to return on board, in order to take advantage of the remaining 

 part of the ebb-tide, it being our next object to endeavour to find a passage 

 into the Welcome, round the south side of the low land to the westward of 

 us. I cannot, therefore, decidedly say, whether there exists a passage of 

 any kind through to the northward in that place or not, but it is possible 

 enough that there may be one, though very narrow and shoal. 



The whole of the bottom here consists of a flat gneiss-rock, over which, 

 as well as on the shoals and islets, lie innumerable fragments of limestone, 

 of a white colour. A mark, consisting of stones piled up, had been set on 

 each side of the narrow channel, as if for the purpose of pointing out the 

 safest part for canoes, when the points are covered by high spring tides. By 

 deep wading, for the nature of the bottom and the rapid fall of tide did 

 not allow us to risk the grounding of the boats, we got to the islet, where 

 we found two jaw-bones of a whale placed erect on a pile of stones, 

 together with a quantity of whalebone ; the whole structure being so con- 

 trived, when viewed at a little distance, that it bore a striking resem- 

 blance to the figure of a man holding the blades of bone in his hands. 

 Among the numerous marks of the kind which we afterwards met with 

 in various parts of the sea-coast, it was not uncommon to observe some 

 which evidently appeared to have reference to the same whimsical in- 

 tention, and which, till habit had rendered them familiar, we often mis- 

 took for men. Being in want of whalebone for making brooms, we took a 

 few of the blades, leaving as an equivalent a boarding-pike stuck upright 

 in the pile ; we then returned to the ships, which we reached at eight P.M. 

 The wind having now become very light and variable, and the navigation of 

 this place requiring the utmost command of the ships, I was reluctantly 

 compelled to defer moving till the morning tide. It was low water at a 



