130 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
with SO many difficulties, dangers, and privations. 
Their toils are extremely fatiguing, and their avo- 
cation subjects them to a variety of unavoidable 
hardships ; they are totally excluded from the com- 
forts known to most other seamen ; and, above all, 
they endure the extreme severity of rigorous cold. 
Should the severe calamity of sickness or accident 
occur while on this voyage, their situation becomes 
extremely pitiable, as the accommodation of a 
Greenland ship is little calculated to alleviate 
sufferings ; nor is the supply of vegetable food such 
as sickness might require. Those who possess a 
spark of philanthropy must therefore feel for the 
situation of these men, and will not withhold from 
them their keenest sympathy. 
On this Sunday a large bear was observed 
July 10 . upon a piece of ice which we passed: Bruin 
looked at us, and took no other notice, but marched 
on, snuffing the breeze, as if conscious of the pro- 
tection which the day afforded him, or, confident 
of his own power if attacked. 
The fog that had prevailed during the 
July 16. cleared away in the morning, and 
the fleet as well as ourselves, sailed from latitude 76° 
to the westward, and continued going in that di- 
rection fourteen hours, when we came to a barrier 
of ice that extended from south to north in a west- 
erly direction, and of an extent beyond our power 
to ascertain. It is impossible for language to describe 
the disappointment which we suffered at having 
our progress again arrested, and the effect which 
