VOYAGE TO GREENLAND, 
121 
that direction. To accomplish this plan, every point 
of the compass had been tried, every part visited, 
and every opening pursued until we could proceed 
no further through the ice. Captain Scoresby on 
returning from the crowds nest, and the latitude 
being reported to him, said, Then, alas ! all further 
attempts to get to the westward are in vain ; having 
only attained fifty miles of western course, very few 
whales having been seen and none taken, that des- 
tination must now be given up, and search made 
for whales in other situations/* I heard the declara- 
tion with feelings of the deepest regret, for I had 
contemplated setting my foot upon that long-lost 
country of Greenland, which for ages had been shut 
from all knowledge ; and probably upon a part never 
yet trodden by man ; my disappointment was the 
greater because I had designed to attempt a geo- 
graphical and hydrographical description of the 
country, and to collect, as far as my time and 
limited abilities would permit, other information of 
importance to science. 
We now sailed to the eastward, and the weather 
being calm, I went in pursuit of a finner, (Balam 
Phy salts y Linn.), with the intention of proving the 
effect of a shell upon one of those fish, which are 
allowed to be the most difficult and dangerous to> 
attack, being persuaded that instantaneous destruc- 
tion would attend the explosion of a shell in the 
viscera of the animal ; but, my expected prey went 
down, and did not come up within a quarter of a 
mile from us. This is not only the largest of the 
