294 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
coast again vanished into the distance, and onr rising 
hopes received an almost intolerable disappointment 
by the appearance of a long line of ice right ahead, 
running to the westward, apparently—as far as the eye 
could reach. To add to our disgust, the wind flew right 
round into the North, and increasing to a gale, brought 
down upon us—not one of the usual thick arctic mists to 
which we were accustomed, but a dark, yellowish brown 
fog, that rolled along the surface of the water in twisted 
columns, and irregular masses of vapour, as dense as 
coal smoke. We had now almost reached the eightieth 
parallel of north latitude, and still an impenetrable 
sheet of ice—extending fifty or sixty miles westward 
from the shore—rendered all hopes of reaching the 
land out of the question. Our expectation of finding 
the north-west extremity of the island disengaged from 
ice by the action of the currents, was—at all events for 
this season—evidently doomed to disappointment. We 
were already almost in the latitude of Amsterdam 
Island—which is actually its north-west point—and the 
coast seemed more encumbered than ever. No whaler 
had ever succeeded in getting more than about 120 
miles further north than we ourselves had already come; 
