CHAPTER IV.

Further Examination of Melville Island.—­Continuation of our Progress to the Westward.—­Long detention by the Ice.—­Party sent on Shore to hunt Deer and Musk-oxen.—­Return in three Days, after losing their Way.—­Anxiety on their Account.—­Proceed to the Westward till finally stopped by the Ice.—­In returning to the Eastward, the Griper forced on the Beach by the Ice.—­Search for, and Discovery of, a Winter Harbour on Melville Island.—­Operations for securing the Ships in their Winter Quarters.

As the wind still continued to blow strong from the northward on the morning of the 6th, without any appearance of opening a passage for us past Cape Hearne, I took the opportunity of sending all our boats from both ships at eight A.M., to bring on board a quantity of moss-peat which our gentlemen reported having found near a small lake at no great distance from the sea, and which I directed to be substituted for part of our usual allowance of coals.  Captain Sabine also went on shore to make the requisite observations; and several of the officers of both ships to sport, and to collect specimens of natural history.

The wind beginning to moderate soon after noon, and there being at length some appearance of motion in the ice near Cape Hearne, the boats were immediately recalled from the shore, and returned at two P.M., bringing some peat, which was found to burn tolerably, but a smaller quantity than I had hoped to procure.  We then made sail for Cape Hearne, which we rounded at six o’clock, having no soundings with from seventeen to twenty fathoms of line, at the distance of a mile and a quarter from the point.

I was beginning once more to indulge in those flattering hopes, of which often-repeated disappointments cannot altogether deprive us, when I perceived from the crow’s-nest a compact body of ice, extending completely in to the shore near the point which formed the western extreme.  We ran sufficiently close to be assured that no passage to the westward could at present be effected, the floes being literally upon the beach, and not a drop of clear water being visible beyond them.  I then ordered the ships to be made fast to a floe, being in eighty fathoms’ water, at the distance of four or five miles from the beach.  The season had now so far advanced as to make it absolutely necessary to secure the ships every night from ten till two o’clock, the weather being too dark during that interval to allow of our keeping under way in such a navigation as this, deprived as we were of the use of compasses.