by John Marshall

“ The weather was beautifully calm and clear on the 13th, when, being near an opening in the eastern shore, I took the opportunity of examining it in a boat. It proved to be a bay, a mile wide at its entrance, and three miles deep in an E.b.S. direction, having a small but snug cove on the north side, formed by an island, between which and the main land is a bar of rocks, which completely shelters the cove from sea or drift ice. We found the water so deep, that in rowing close along the shore we could seldom get bottom with seven fathoms of line. ”

“ The wind increasing to a fresh gale from the northward in the afternoon, and the ice still continuing to oppose an impenetrable barrier to our further progress, I determined to beat up to the northern shore of the bay, and, if a tolerable roadsted could be found, to drop our anchors till some change should take place. This was accordingly done at 3 p.m., in seven fathoms’ water, the bottom being excellent holding ground, composed of mud and sand, from which the lead could with difficulty be extricated. When we veered to half a cable, we had ten fathoms’ water under the stern. ”

“ Just before the disruption of the ice, however, some slight, but unequivocal, symptoms of scurvy were reported to have appeared among the Fury’s crew, and Captain Parry began to entertain doubts whether it would still be prudent to adopt the intended measure of remaining out in her as a single ship; whether, in short, under existing circumstances, the probable evil did not far outweigh the possible good. ”

“ Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which kept us almost continually floundering among deep snow and water. The sledges having then been brought up, as far as we had explored, we all went back for the boats; each crew, when the road was tolerable, dragging their own, and the officers labouring equally hard with the men. It was thus we proceeded for nine miles out of every ten that we travelled over ice; for it was very rarely indeed that we met with a surface sufficiently level and hard to drag all our loads at one journey ”

“ If, however, the sea to the westward, which was our direct course, had been obstructed by ice, and the wind had been favourable, such was the tempting appearance of Wellington Channel, that I should probably have been induced to run through it, as a degree more or less to the northward made little or no difference in the distance we had to run by Icy Cape. It is impossible to conceive any thing more animating than the quick and unobstructed run with which we were favoured, from Beechey Island across to Cape Hotham. ”

“ On the 21st, we had nothing to impede our progress but the want of wind, the great opening, through which we had hitherto proceeded from Baffin’s Bay, being no.y so perfectly clear of ice, that it was impossible to believe it to be the same part of the sea, which, but a day or two before, had been completely covered with ‘floes’ to the utmost extent of our view. ”

“ We hauled our wind to the northward, just in time to avoid being embayed in the ice, on the outer edge of which a considerable surf, the effect of a late gale, was then rolling. A second island was discovered to the southward of the former, to both of which I gave the name of Prince Leopold’s Isles. Immediately to the eastward of them, there was a strong ‘water-sky,’ indicating a considerable extent of open sea; but an ‘ice-blink’ to the westward afforded little hope, for the present, of finding a passage in the desired direction [5] . ”

“ The only ice we met with consisted of a few large bergs very much washed by the sea; and the weather being remarkably clear, so as to enable us to run with perfect safety, we were, by midnight, in a great measure relieved from our anxiety respecting the supposed continuity of land at the bottom of this magnificent inlet, having reached the longitude of 83° 12', where the two shores are still above thirteen leagues apart, without the slightest appearance of any land to the westward of us for four or five points of the compass. ”

“ As soon as the boats returned, all sail was made to the westward, where the prospect began to wear a more and more interesting appearance. We soon perceived, as we proceeded, that the land along which we were sailing, and which, with the exception of some small inlets, had appeared to be hitherto continuous from Baffin’s Bay, began now to trend much to the northward, beyond Beechey Island, leaving a large open space between that coast and the distant land to the westward, which now appeared like an island, of which the extremes to the north and south were distinctly visible. ”

“ The sea was open before us, free from ice or land; and the Hecla pitched so much from the westerly swell in the course of the day, as to throw the water once or twice into the stern windows, a circumstance which, together with other appearances, we were willing to attribute to an open sea in the desired direction. More than forty black whales were teen during; the day.
“We made little progress on the 3rd; but being favored at length by the easterly breeze which was bringing up the Griper, a crowd of sail was set to carry us with all rapidity to the westward. ”

“ The prospect from the crow’s nest [6] began to assume a very unpromising appearance, the whole of the western horizon, from north round to S.b.E., being completely covered with ice, consisting of heavy and extensive does, beyond which no indication of water was visible. The western coast of the inlet, however, trended much more to the westward than before, and no land was visible to the S.W., though the horizon was so clear in that quarter, that, if any had existed of moderate height, it might have been easily seen at this time, at the distance of 40 or 12 leagues. ”

“ We began by digging a large hole under the stern, in order to enter the saw, which occupied us nearly two days, only a small number of men being able to work at it. In the mean time, all the snow and rubbish was cleared away from the ship’s sides, leaving only the solid ice to work upon: and a trench, two feet wide, was cut the whole length of the starboard side, from the stem to the rudder, keeping within an inch or two of the bends, and taking care here and there to leave a dike, to prevent the water which might ooze into one part from filling up the others in which the men were working. ”

“ To facilitate the latter part of the process, the seamen, who are always fond of doing things in their own way, took advantage of a fresh northerly breeze, by setting, some boats’ sails upon the pieces of ice, a contrivance which saved some time and labour. This part of the operation, however, was by far the most troublesome, principally on account of the quantity of young ice which formed in the canal, and especially about the entrance, where, before sun-set, it had become so thick that a passage could no longer be found for the detached pieces without considerable trouble in breaking it. ”

“ The wind and sea increased on the 19th, with a heavy fall of snow, which, together with the uselessness of the compasses, and the narrow space in which we were working between the ice and the land, combined to make our situation for several hours a very unpleasant one. ”

“ In the afternoon, the weather became very clear and fine, the wind light from the westward. As this latter circumstance rendered our progress very slow, the opportunity was taken to send boats on shore, for the purpose of making observations; and at the same time, a boat from each ship, under Lieutenants Beechey and Hoppner, was sent to examine a bay, at no great distance to the northward and westward of us. The first party landed at the foot of a bluff headland, which forms the eastern point of this bay, and which I named after my friend Mr. Richard Riley, of the Admiralty. ”

“ Scoresby, a close and intelligent observer of nature in these regions, is entirely to the same effect. “I once saw,” says he, “a field that was so free from either fissure or hummock, that I imagine, had it been free from snow, a coach might have been driven many leagues over it in a direct line, without obstruction or danger.” Indeed, in a paper upon the subject of the polar ice, presented by him to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, and published in the second volume of their memoirs, he enters at considerable length into the arguments in favour of the practicability of this enterprise ”

“ After two hours’ hard pulling, we succeeded in getting the Hecla back again into clear water, and to a sufficient distance from the ice-bergs, which it is very dangerous to approach when there is a swell. At noon we were in lat. 66" 50' 47", long. 57° 7' 56", being near the middle of the narrowest part of Davis’s Strait, which is here not more than fifty leagues across." Of the situation of the Hecla and her consort, on this day, there is an awfully grand view (in the quarto edition of “Parry’s First Voyage”) , from a sketch by Lieutenant Beechey. ”

“ On the 21st, having proceeded slowly to the westward, they had reached the latitude of 61° 50' 13", and longitude, by chronometers, 67° 7' 35", where they made fast to a large floe of ice, not having room to beat to windward, and were visited by a number of Esquimaux. On the 2nd of August, they came to a body of ice so closely “packed” that they could make no further progress, while the masses on the outer edge were moving so rapidly in various directions as to occasion them much trouble and many violent blows before they could get clear of those impediments. ”

“ The daily visits of the natives, throughout the winter, afforded, both to officers and men, a fund of constant variety and never-falling amusement, which no resources of their own could possibly have furnished.
In April, 1823, a twelve months’ provisions and stores were removed from the Hecla to the Fury, and various necessary exchanges made in anchors, cables, and boats, it having been determined that the former ship should return to England as soon as the sea became navigable. ”

“ The latter was a remarkable headland, having at its extremity two small table hills, somewhat resembling boats turned bottom upwards, and was named Cape Hotham. At sunset, we had a clear and extensive view to the northward, between Cape Hotham and the eastern land. On the latter several headlands were discovered and named; between the northernmost of these, called Cape Bowden, and the island to the westward, there was a channel of more than eight leagues in width, in which neither land nor ice could be seen from the mast-head. ”

“ The expedition left Deptford, May 8, 1824; touched at the Whale-fish Islands, on the Western coast of Greenland, June 26th; and entered the ice in Baffin’s bay, about the 17th July; but did not reach the entrance of Sir James Lancaster’s Sound until Sept. 10. Three days afterwards, being then within seven leagues of Cape York, Captain Parry had the mortification to perceive the sea a-head of the ships covered with young ice, the thermometer having, for two days past, ranged only from 18° to 20°. ”

“ Captain Parry’s expectations of ultimately accomplishing the object of the expedition were now at an end, as the whole of the Fury’s stores were of necessity left behind; every spare corner that could be found in the Hecla being absolutely required for the accomodation of so many officers and men, whose cleanliness and health could only be maintained by keeping the decks as clear and well ventilated as their limited space would permit ”

“ The ice, now twenty-three inches in thickness, had by this time become so firmly attached to the bends of the ships, that they were completely imbedded in it, and the operation of cutting round them occupied their crews almost the whole of two days. The attempt to keep it clear by continual daily sawing was obliged to be abandoned about the middle of November, as the men almost always got their feet wet, from which the most injurious effects upon their health were likely to result. ”

“ The attention paid by the men to the observance of their religious duties, were such as to reflect upon them the highest credit, and tended, in no small degree, to the preservation of that regularity and good conduct, for which, with very few exceptions, they were invariably distinguished. ”