196 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
advance in strength and power in proportion as he surmounts the 
oostacles, which present themselves to his success. That there 
were some ambitious souls on board the Victory, who were not 
led solely by a love of lucre, to engage in the perilous enterprise, 
cannot for a moment be considered as a matter of doubt, and it 
may be said 
They have felt 
A presence that disturbs them with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfus’d, 
Whose dwelling is the sight of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, 
A motion, and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. 
Determined however as the commander of the expedition 
might be to prosecute his voyage as soon as the weather would 
permit, yet the general expectation of success was considerably 
diminished, by the reports which the Esquimaux gave them at 
different times of the adjacent coasts, and particularly of the 
existence of an open sea to the westward. Respecting the latter 
the opinion of the natives appeared to be unanimous that no open 
sea whatever existed, and that far to the westward it was nothing 
but a kind of archipelago, or cluster of islands, between which 
the navigation would be attended with great difficulty and danger. 
One morning however they were surprised by a visit from 
Tullooachiu, who had broken his wooden leg, bringing with 
him a native far advanced in years, and who was represented to 
be better acquainted with the adjacent coasts, than any other of 
the natives, who had visited the ship. There was however some¬ 
thing in the manner of this new informant, which struck the 
officers very forcibly, as differing considerably from the frankness 
and simplicity which characterized the other natives, for he 
gave them to understand that he would not give them the re¬ 
quired information until an adequate present had been made 
him. This circumstance excited some suspicion in the breasts 
