OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



267 



not less than nine miles in breadth, we were enabled to stand off and on by 1822 - 

 the soundings, and even to make considerable progress to windward. The 

 coast was here again nearly clear of land-ice, and wherever a patch did occur, 

 the rest seemed to have been divided from it very lately, the margin being 

 free from any appearance of rubbing or external pressure. The weather 

 clearing up in the course of the forenoon, on the 14th, we perceived the land 

 continued nearly its former trending, and that the navigable channel was 

 from four to five leagues wide, the situation of the main body of the ice being 

 clearly marked out by a bright " blink," in its usual arch-like form, over- 

 spreading the whole eastern horizon. Our northern extreme now in sight 

 was a piece of low sandy -looking land, which had the appearance of 

 being detached from the higher and darker land to the westward; and 

 by comparing its situation with that of the island of Amitioke, laid down 

 in the Esquimaux charts, it seemed probable that it was this station which 

 we had now reached. A strip of the same kind of low land as that above 

 mentioned was, also, observed to run along the continental shore, between 

 the hills and the sea, for several leagues to the southward of our present 

 station. It was here, indeed, that, in sailing to the northward, we began 

 gradually to lose sight of the bold primitive mountains of the main- 

 land, the intervening strip of low and yellow-looking shore becoming more 

 and more broad, and the soundings oft' the coast altering their character at 

 the same time as might be expected, but still preserving their regularity ac- 

 cording to the distance from the land. We observed at noon in lat. 68° 02' 

 45", our longitude, by chronometers, being 82° 13' 32", by which it appeared 

 that we had been favoured with an unobstructed run of fifty miles, an event 

 of no trifling importance in this tedious and uncertain navigation. The sea- 

 horses, of which we had occasionally seen a few for one or two days past, 

 were here much more numerous ; which rather served to confirm us in the be- 

 lief that we were now off Amitioke, in the neighbourhood of which the Es- 

 quimaux had represented them as abundant. From this part of the coast 

 northwards, as far at least as Igloolik, these animals are perhaps indeed as 

 numerous as in any part of the world. 



We continued beating to the northward under all sail during 'the night, Mon. 15, 

 the wind remaining steadily from that quarter with smooth water and 

 extremely fine weather. Our latitude by observation at noon was 68° 22' 21", 

 and the longitude by chronometers, 81° 56' 55". The land continued to be 

 of the same character as before described, the hills at the back having now 



2 M 2 



