LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
482 
ward, and drove the ice into the inlet, carrying every thing 
before it, and forced the ship two or three feet closer in shore. 
The ice was now closely packed, and, at low water, the ship 
careened four streaks. 
On the 27th, the rudder was unshipped ; the wind still blow¬ 
ing hard from the north-east, and about two miles off, a vast 
expanse of clear water, with a very dark watery sky; but the 
ship was so blocked up, that it was then reduced to a certainty, 
that their progress for that season, was at an end. Com¬ 
mander Ross left the ship, to take a view of the position, in 
which the Victory lay, and to seek for a place, where she 
might harbour for the winter. He ascended a hill, and to the 
northward saw a clear sea, in which the Victory ought to have 
been, if she had kept on her course, on the day that she left Fe¬ 
lix Harbour, instead of being fastened to the bergs, from which 
act, the whole of their disasters were to be ascribed. Comman¬ 
der Ross marked out a place for a harbour, but, on examining it 
more minutely, it was found to be too shallow. 
From the 29th September to the 3rd October, the crew were 
laboriously employed in getting the ship into her winter har¬ 
bour, and in five days they got her no further than 35 feet. 
The crew were principally engaged in cutting a canal for the 
ship to winter in, or rather the canal was cut for the purpose of 
getting the ship into deeper water, for where she then lay, the 
heavy ice was clear of her bottom ; but, at low water, she would 
fall on her broadside, if she were not shored up every tide, 
which was one of the severest labors, which the crew had to 
undergo, during the whole of the voyage : in fact, it may be 
affirmed, that the privations, which they underwent at this pe¬ 
riod, and the constant and unremitting labor, to which they 
were exposed, may be denominated as the most trying part of 
the voyage. In the first place, each man had to keep his watch 
every night, with the thermometer as low as 15 below zero. As 
soon as morning broke, all hands were turned out to saw the 
ice, for the purpose of making the canal ; and every piece, that 
was cut, had to be got on the ice, for there was not depth of 
water sufficient to suck it under it. The whole of this ice, that 
