188 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
three more of slightly hazy weather : and, for many 
successive days, we had not a clear moment, and 
sometimes the farthest we could see throughout the 
day was a mile or two, at others not two hundred 
yards, and very often the intensity of the mist 
was such, that a mass of ice could not be discerned 
at the distance of fifty yards : yet, amidst this uni- 
versal obscurity we passed in direct lines, (not rec- 
koning the stretches in tacking) six or seven hun- 
dred miles through immense fields, floes, and 
crowded drift ice, and traced, as well as possible 
for the time, the edge of the ice next the sea, a dis- 
tance of five or six hundred miles more. We 
sailed above twice that distance in search of fish, 
throughout their most usual and favourite haunts, 
but saw very few. And from the west land in 
Lat. 74| Long. 14 W., to the sea edge in 1 W. in 
the same parallel, and from thence down to our 
quitting the fishing sea, we never saw a single 
whale. As I could not feel myself justified in per- 
severing to the westward under such untoward cir- 
cumstances, I determined very reluctantly to aban- 
don further pursuit, notwithstanding our indifferent 
cargo, and to proceed homeward ; steering there- 
fore S.S.E. to give a birth to the ice, and the land 
during the fog, we took leave of the ice at a pe- 
riod twenty days later than I had ever before 
been amidst these evidences of the irresistible 
bonds of frost.” 
The occurrences of our voyage, after we left 
the ice, were of continued sameness, too trivial to 
