320 



SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



Aifus't were » however, prepared for this attempt at four o'clock the following 

 morning. 



Wed. 28. The weather became so thick with rain and snow in the course of the 

 night, that we could not see half a mile in any direction ; but about one 

 A.M. on the 28th, we began to perceive, by a gradual alteration in the 

 soundings, that the ice to which the ships were attached was adrift, No 

 time was therefore to be lost in getting the ships underway, to be at liberty 

 to act as circumstances might require, for we did not know in what direction 

 we were driving. The weather now became so much thicker, with snow in 

 large flakes, that we could with difficulty see three hundred yards a-head. 

 We stood to the eastward, however, and after getting sight of the grounded 

 ice on the shoals, tacked off and on till we should see how the floe we had 

 left was driving. It was not long before we perceived it to be setting directly 

 on the shoals, so that it was necessary for us to find our way between them, at 

 •all risks, to avoid the certain danger of being forced upon the rocks. In 

 making a tack near the shoals, the Fury's helm was put down in eight 

 fathoms, but before the sails filled, the ship was carried by the current into 

 three, and the yellow rocks were plainly visible under her. She gathered 

 way, however, just in time to avoid grounding, and the Hecla, presently 

 after, escaping a similar accident near the same spot, we cleared the shoals 

 in another tack or two, and then stood to the eastward. 



Proceeding with all the caution which the state of the weather, and the 

 extremely confined nature of the navigation, rendered requisite, we soon 

 made the northern land of the narroAvs, within a mile of which we remained 

 for several hours, endeavouring to find some sheltered anchorage, the wind 

 being fresh from the N.N.W. and the weather becoming still more inclement 

 than before. So steep, however, was this shore, that we could obtain no 

 soundings with eighty-eight fathoms of line at half a mile distance, and 

 generally found from thirty to twenty-six within a cable's length of the 

 rocks, in every little nook the boats entered. In the evening, finding the 

 weather not likely to improve, and that the situation of the ships, if kept 

 under way during the night in this narrow and unknown channel, must be a 

 very dangerous one, we bore up to make the island, in the hope of finding 

 shelter under one of its numerous low points. In this last resource we were 

 not disappointed ; for in an hour's run we made the island, which was now so 

 covered with snow as to be easily mistaken for a floe of ice without great 

 attention to the leads ; and with a degree of good fortune which has never 



