550 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, the sand for their own use. The yourts, which render this point 
remarkable at a distance, were partly filled with water, and partly with 
Sept, winter store of blubber and oil. 
1827 
From Icy Cape he stood E. N. E. ten miles, and then N. E. twenty- 
seven, at which time, in consequence of the weather continuing thick 
and the wind beginning to blow hard from the south-west, he hauled 
off shore, and shortly fell in with the main body of ice, which arrested 
his course and obliged him to put about. It blew so strong during the 
night that the boat could only show her close-reefed mainsail and storm- 
jib, under which she plied, in order to avoid the ice and a lee-shore : 
the boat thus pressed leaked considerably, and kept the crew at the 
pumps. 
On the 51 1st August, the weather being more moderate, he again 
made the ice, and after keeping along it some time, returned to Icy 
Cape, and found that the edge of the packed ice was in latitude TO, 41 N. 
in a N. IST. W. direction from the cape, extending east and west (true). 
On the 23d August another landing was made upon Icy Cape, and 
its latitude, by artificial horizon, ascertained to be 70° 19' 28" N., and 
variation by Eater’s compass 32° 49' E. Lieutenant Belcher’s curiosity 
was here greatly awakened by one of the natives leading him to a large 
room used by the Esquimaux for dancing, and by searching for a billet 
of wood, which his gestures implied had been left by some Europeans, 
but not finding it, he scrutinized several chips which were in the 
apartment, and intimated that some person had cut it up. This was 
very provoking, as Lieutenant Belcher naturally recurred to the possi- 
bility of Captain Franklin having been there, and after leaving this billet 
as a memorial, had returned by the same route. Nothing, however, was 
found, and Lieutenant Belcher, having deposited a notice that he had 
been there, embarked and passed the night off the Cape in heavy falls of 
snow, hail, and sleet. The next day he again fell in with ice in latitude 
70° 40' N. and stood back to the cape and examined the shoals upon 
which the ship lost her anchor the preceding year. 
On the 26th, the ice was again found in 70° 41' N., and the next 
day was traced to the E. S. E. to within five or six miles of the land, 
about twenty miles to the eastward of Icy Cape. The ice appeared 
