beset in the pack, near to a chain of eleven bergs, of the barrier kind, and in a thick fog the greater part of the day, with by no means a cheering prospect before us; we, nevertheless, managed to do justice to the good old English fare, which we had taken care to preserve for the occasion.
The wind shifted early in the day to the northward, Dec. 26.and towards the evening increased to a strong breeze, accompanied with thick weather and snow; we were at this time in a large hole of clear water, but were not able to find any way out of it to the southward; and as this unfavourable weather continued for some days, we could do nothing more than dodge about from side to side, or occasionally run along the edge of the hole, under easy sail, manoeuvring the vessels so as to keep them from getting beset, and ready to take advantage of any favourable change that might occur of pushing through the pack to the southward. On the evening of the thirtieth, it became Dec. 30.quite calm and the ice spread out so as to shut up the hole we were in, but without opening sufficiently to admit of our making any way through it, when a light air sprung up from the northward. We, therefore, made our ships fast to the largest piece of ice we could get hold of, mooring it between the ships to prevent their coming into collision with each other, and employed our crews in filling the water tanks with ice from the floe, the small pools of water which we found on it being too brackish to drink.
