306 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



Augifst ouservec ^ to set ^ rom westward at our present station, the probability 

 was much in favour of this channel being the first cleared, was too plain to 

 admit doubt ; and I therefore entertained none as to the point towards which 

 all our efforts should be directed. If after all there should be two channels 

 in this neighbourhood, both leading into the Polar Sea, one perhaps to the 

 north and the other to the south of an island, (which in the present state of 

 our knowledge seemed the only reasonable conclusion,) the propriety of 

 pushing through that which was first opened still remained the same ; for 

 the quitting of the continental shore for a few miles could not, in such a 

 navigation as this, be put in competition with the value of a day or even an 

 hour of our remaining navigable season. 



Convinced, however, as I was of the expediency of pursuing this line of 

 conduct, which in truth seemed the only practicable one, yet every hour's 

 delay added an indescribable weight to my anxiety. For the same train of 

 reasoning, by which we natter ourselves into a belief of having done our best 

 to avoid an evil, does not always furnish a proportionate degree of patience to 

 enable us quietly to endure it ; and, stopped as we had now been, at the very 

 threshold of the North-West Passage, for nearly four weeks, without advanc- 

 ing twice as many miles to the westward, suspense at such a crisis was scarce- 

 ly the less painful because we knew it to be inevitable. The decayed state 

 of the ice, which even a fortnight before, had rendered travelling extremely 

 dangerous, could alone, therefore, under these vexatious circumstances, have 

 prevented my despatching another party, for the express purpose of deciding 

 the question respecting the Strait : for, highly as we had a right to value 

 the repeated and concurrent testimony of so many intelligent Esquimaux, it 

 was impossible to feel satisfied on such a subject, while our own ocular evi- 

 dence was still wanting. Observing, however, to-day, from an eminence 

 on which we took the angles for the survey, that the ice within the line of the 

 island appeared much less decayed than that in the stream of the Strait, I 

 determined on attempting, by this means, a journey to the westward, endea- 

 vouring first to reach some Islands in that direction ; and then, by passing 

 from one to the other, at length to gain the main-land, upon which it might 

 not perhaps be difficult to travel to the Strait itself, and thus to end every 

 doubt, as well as every conjecture, respecting it. 



While we were on shore, which was from a quarter past one till twenty 

 minutes past six, P.M., the tide ebbed three feet and a half, and appeared to 

 be still falling. The beach is extremely flat and shelving, so that the boats 



