THE MIDDLE PACK. 
71 
we purchased a goodly stock of eider eggs and three 
young seals. 
July 7. We had now passed the seventy-third de- 
gree of latitude without being materially retarded by 
ice. The weather was one unbroken sunshine, and 
worthier of the Bay of Naples than Baffin’s. The 
coast on our right hand consisted of low islands, so 
grouped as to resemble continuous land. They were 
a part of the archipelago at the mouth of the large 
fiord of Ovinde Oerme, and varied in size from mere 
knobs to lofty headlands not less than fifteen hundred 
feet high. To our left was a coast of a different char- 
acter — ^the ice. This we had now skirted since the 
3d. We knew it, therefore, to he a part of that great 
harrier, the “middle pack,” around whose dangerous 
circuit we had to pass before reaching the western 
waters. By standing in and out, we made the dis- 
tance of the pack from shore to be about thirty miles. 
The space between was clear, and it was along this, 
as upon a great river, we had thus far pushed our way 
uninterrupted. 
July 7. On the morning of the 7th, a large vacant 
sheet of water showed itself to the westward, pene- 
trating the ice as far as the eye could reach ; and from 
the top-mast-head we could see the southern margin 
. of this ice losing itself in a clear, watery horizon. It 
was a strong temptation. Our commander determined 
to try for a passage through. 
As this day exercised a somewhat controlling influ- 
ence upon our future progress, I will give its occur- 
rences as they stand in my journal. 
“It commenced,” says the log-book, with “the pack 
ahead, a four-knot breeze from the E.N.E., and our 
course to the southwest.” By ten we fastened in the 
