104 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
welfare, and feeling an earnest desire for their 
health and prosperity. 
The ice being observed to open about three 
o’clock, we had the gratification of again pursuing 
our western course, through its intricate leads and 
zig-zag angles, where there was much difficulty in 
keeping clear from dangerous floes strewed with 
hummocks ; one of these solid masses was at least 
fifty feet high, thirty feet broad, and twenty feet 
in thickness; and had doubtless been forced upon 
the floe when in contact with some other piece. 
This, with other evidences of the prodigious power 
of bodies of ice when in motion, I could not behold 
without feelings of horror, knowing what, would be 
the fate of the Baffin if caught in their clutches. This 
beautiful day’s sailing, which exceeded all that I 
had hitherto seen, closed with our proceeding as 
far as the ice would allow ; in the evening we were 
encircled by a dense fog. The altitude of the sun 
at noon, was 39"^ 30' and at midnight 7° 30'. 
The bustle attendant on lowering a boat, 
June 22 . birth at half past 
four o’clock ; when I arrived upon the deck, I saw 
the crew of one boat armed with lances and ranged 
on the borders of the ice, while a second boat was 
in full chase of an immense bear that had been 
attacked by the party on the ice, and had kept all 
its assailants at bay, until it had succeeded in ef- 
fecting a good retreat into the water. The animal 
swam so astonishingly fast, that it was at least half 
