$ 



436 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



June a ^ to nover a ^ out tne ship3, being attracted by the pools of water near 

 ^r~w them. These had now become considerable, in consequence of the sand and 

 other substances with which, immediately in their neighbourhood, the ice 

 was lightly covered in many places. The quickness and certainty with 

 which this process goes on under these circumstances, induced me on this 

 occasion to try the experiment of dispensing with the usual wet and laborious 

 operation of sawing the ice round the Fury. The event was such as to answer 

 every expectation, not the smallest injurious strain having been suffered 

 by the ship's bends, notwithstanding the alteration of w T eight and stowage ; 

 and the ship gradually liberated herself by the dissolution of the ice about 

 the beginning of July. The Hecla being surrounded by the masses squeezed 

 up to a great thickness in the preceding autumn, was obliged to dig a trench 

 and, after sawing the rest, to pull out the blocks as usual; but with a single 

 winter's formation around a ship, strengthened as ours were, I believe she 

 may safely be left to liberate herself, and that she will usually be free in time 

 to take advantage of the other ice breaking up. 

 Frid. 20. On the 20th three or four other Esquimaux, strangers to us, arrived at 

 Igloolik from the northward, and we found from two young men who visited 

 Sat. 21. us on the following day that they came from Too-noo-nek, a place undoubtedly 

 situated somewhere on the western coast of Baffin's Bay, or about some of the 

 inlets communicating with it, as they had there seen several Kabloona ships 

 employed in killing whales. It is not improbable, from the various accounts of 

 the direction and distance of Toonoonek, communicated by the Esquimaux 

 through the usual medium of their charts, that the part of the sea-coast so 

 named lies at no great distance from Pond's Bay, in lat. 72|°, which has lately 

 become a common rendezvous of our Davis' Strait fishermen. Of this fact 

 we had, in the course of the winter, received intimation from these people 

 from time to time, and had even some reason to believe that our visit to the 

 Esquimaux of the River Clyde in 1820 was known to them ; but what most 

 excited our interest at this time was the sledge brought by the new-comers, 

 the runners being composed of large single pieces of wood, one of them 

 painted black over a lead-coloured priming, and the cross-bars consist- 

 ing of heading-pieces of oak-butts, one flat board with a hinge-mark upon it, 

 the upper end of a skid or small-boat's davit, and others that had evidently 

 and recently been procured from some ship. On one of the heading-pieces 

 we distinguished the letters Brea — , shewing that the cask had, according to 

 the custom of the whalers, contained bread on the outward passage. The 



