254 
LANCASTER SOUND. 
i 
of course, no escape for us from this encounter; and 
the only question was of the degrees of hazard it must 
involve. 
On the 19th, the tall, mural precipices to the north- 
ward, and the cape in which they terminated toward 
the east, convinced us that we had almost reached the 
western headland of Croker's Bay. We had drifted one 
hundred and eleven miles since the beginning of the 
month. Our course had been without any cheering 
incident. There was the same wretched succession 
of openings and closings about our floe, somewhat dan- 
gerous, but too uniform to be exciting ; and we had 
drilled with knapsack and sledge, till we were almost 
martinets in our evolutions on the ice. I group the 
few entries of my journal that have any interest. 
" December 11. Wind last night fierce from the north ; 
to-day as fierce from the west. It has carried us clear 
of the great cape that stretches out east of Maxwell's 
Bay, and that threatened us with the variety of a lee 
shore. The Rescue has had another trial : her stern- 
post is carried away, her pintle and gudgeon wrenched 
off. A party of officers and men are out, trying the ex- 
periment of a night upon the ice, tented and bag-bed- 
ded. I wish them luck ; but the thermometer fifty- 
seven degrees below freezing is unfavorable to a fete 
champetre. 
" December 12. Everything solid, and looking as if 
it had always been so ; yet, a few days ago, I had this 
journal of mine stitched u-p in its tarred canvas-bag, 
and ready for a fling upon the ice four times in the 
twenty-four hours. The floes have stopped abrading 
each other, and are driving ahead right peaceably, with 
our brig mounted on top : how far we are from the 
edges, it is too dark to see. 
