Hecla within a number of heavy masses of grounded ice, such as do
not often occur on this steep coast, which, compared with the
situation we had lately left, appeared a perfect harbour. In the
mean time, the wind had failed our consort when she was a mile and
a half short of this place; and Lieutenant Liddon, after
endeavouring in vain to warp up to us, was obliged, by the ice
suddenly closing upon him, to place her in-shore, in the first
situation he could find, which proved to be in very deep water, as
well as otherwise so insecure as not to admit a hope of saving the
ship should the ice continue to press upon her.

Mr. Fisher found very good sport in our new station, having
returned in the evening, after a few hours' excursion, with nine
hares; the birds had, of late, almost entirely deserted us, a
flock or two of ptarmigan and snow-buntings, a few glaucous gulls,
a raven, and an owl, being all that had been met with for several
days.

A fog, which had prevailed during the night, cleared away in the
morning of the 16th, and a very fine day succeeded, with a
moderate breeze from the westward. In order to have a clear and
distinct view of the state of the ice, after twenty-four hours'
wind from that quarter, Captain Sabine, Mr. Edwards, and myself,
walked about two miles to the westward, along the high part of the
land next the sea, from whence it appeared but too evident that no
passage in this direction was yet to be expected. The ice to the
west and southwest was as solid and compact, to all appearance, as
so much land; to which, indeed, the surface of so many fields,
from the kind of hill and dale I have before endeavoured to
describe, bore no imperfect resemblance. I have no doubt that, had