OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



351 



had partially cleared. A number of seals were seen upon the ice, and these ^ 82 ^- 

 were all the animals we noticed about this time. Our light-house was again 

 established at sunset. 



On the 17th, the wind freshened almost to a gale from the north-west, with Tues. 17. 

 thicker and more constant snow than before. The thermometer fell to 16J° 

 at six A.M., rose no higher than 20° in the course of the day, and got down 

 to 12° at night, so that the young ice began now to form about us in great 

 quantities. The danger of our being seriously hampered, should the ice 

 come adrift in the night, being much increased by this new annoyance, 

 which we well 'knew to be the certain symptom of approaching winter, it 

 became absolutely necessary to move somewhere out of the way. We there- 

 fore cast off and stood a little within the east point of Amherst Island, where 

 a good birth was found along-side another floe of land-ice, and sheltered by 

 the island from any thing coming up the Strait from the westward. The 

 Fury was set fast by the young ice in the course of the night, which proved 

 clearer than was expected, with a faint appearance of the Aurora Borealis in 

 the N.N.W. quarter. 



Appearances had now become so much against our making any further 

 progress this season, as to render it a matter of very serious consideration 

 whether we ought to risk being shut up during the winter, in the middle of 

 the Strait, where, from whatever cause it might proceed, the last year's ice was 

 not yet wholly detached from the shores ; and where a fresh formation had 

 already commenced, which there was but too much reason to believe would 

 prove a permanent one. It has been seen by what gradual steps our informa- 

 tion w r as obtained respecting the Strait now before us, how frequent were the 

 delays, and how insurmountable the obstacles we had to encounter ; and* 

 though no account, however detailed, can convey an adequate idea of the 

 anxiety with which each scrap of information was sought after and received, 

 or the daily and hourly mortification attendant on each fresh delay, the fore- 

 going narrative is, perhaps, sufficient to shew that it was not without consider- 

 able mental solicitude, as well as physical exertion, that we had effected even 

 thus far our passage to the westward. In proportion to the labour and disap- 

 pointments which the attainment of this object had cost us, was the reluc- 

 tance I felt in admitting even a thought of its abandonment ; and as long as 

 the weather continued open, I always ventured to cherish a belief that some 

 favourable alteration might yet occur. Now, however, that the frost was 

 hourly at work in re-connecting, by numberless links, the " older" masses,. 



