comfort; a luxury which, on account of the necessity that existed
for the strictest economy in this article, it must be confessed,
we had not often enjoyed since we entered Sir James Lancaster's
Sound. We had been on two thirds allowance of bread between ten
and eleven months, and on the same reduced proportion of the other
species of provisions between three and four; and, although this
quantity is scarcely enough for working men for any length of
time, I believe the reduction of fuel was generally considered by
far the greater privation of the two.

As it appeared to me that considerable service might be rendered
by a general survey of the western coast of Baffin's Bay, which,
from Sir James Lancaster's Sound southward, might one day become
an important station for our whalers, I determined to keep as
close to that shore during our passage down as the ice and the
wind would permit; and as the experience of the former voyage had
led us to suppose that this coast would be almost clear of ice
during the whole of September, I thought that this month could not
be better employed than in the examination of its numerous bays
and inlets. Such an examination appeared to me more desirable,
from the hope of finding some new outlet into the Polar Sea in a
lower latitude than that of Sir James Lancaster's Sound; a
discovery which would be of infinite importance towards the
accomplishment of the Northwest Passage.




CHAPTER XI.