OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



259 



pally from the impossibility of keeping them all equally tight, in conse- 

 quence of the frequent changes in the direction of a ship's head by the irre- 

 gular pressure of the ice. The only method therefore, by which it seemed 

 practicable to prevent being forced adrift, was to run out a bower cable to 

 some of the numerous large hummocks upon the land-floe, which was ac- 

 cordingly done, and all the hawsers then got on board. In the course of the 

 afternoon the Fury withstood several very violent pressures, which gave us 

 some reason to apprehend damage to the windlass, if not to the ship's bows, 

 so heavy was the strain at times upon the cable, but fortunately every thing 

 held on. As soon as the ebb-tide had made, we took the opportunity af- 

 forded by a small lane of open water, to endeavour to save the Hecla's haw- 

 sers that had been carried away, which service was performed in a couple of 

 hours by the boats under the command of Lieutenant Reid ; and to avoid de- 

 tention to the Hecla a staff was erected on the spot, with a note for Captain 

 Lyon's information. The Hecla had in the mean time been driven several 

 miles back to the southward, after vainly endeavouring for some hours to 

 secure fresh hawsers to the land-floe, and at the frequent and indescribably 

 painful risk of having her men separated from their ship by the rapid and 

 irregular motion of the ice. In the course of the evening an immense floe 

 was separated from the land, just beyond us to the northward and, drifting out 

 into the main stream of the tide, left the first clear space completely as far as 

 the shore, that we had yet seen since leaving Winter Island. This occur- 

 rence, though it gave us evident proof that the disruption of the ice was 

 rapidly going on, at the same time increased the hazard of this navigation ; 

 for the pressure of such a floe in motion in a strong tide-way would be suf- 

 ficient to crush the stoutest ship, while the absence of land-ice in that part 

 would render her more liable than before to be forced upon the rocky 

 shore. The wind came from the S.S.W. at night, with clear and delightful 

 weather, and a sky that might vie in beauty with that of an Italian landscape. 

 The flood-tide was less strong, and therefore gave us less disturbance than 

 that of the morning. 



At half-past eight on the morning of the 9th, a considerable space of open Tues 

 water being left to the northward of us by the ice that had broken off the 

 preceding night, I left the Fury in a boat for the purpose of sounding along 

 the shore in that direction, in readiness for moving whenever the Hecla should 

 be enabled to rejoin us. I found the soundings regular in almost every part, 

 and had just landed to obtain a view from an eminence, when I was recalled 



2 l 2 



