the engines into working order, and determined to drive them himself, for without steam we could reckon upon nothing.
July passed away, and during the first week in August we could still see one unbroken surface of ice in Regent Inlet; from the highest hill not a spoonful of water could be made out. We were getting rather anxious, for had we been detained another winter, we must have abandoned the ship in the following spring and trusted to our fortunes over the ice. However, a gale of wind on the 7th and 8th of August caused some disruption in the inlet, for on the morning of the 9th a report came down from the hills that a lead of water was seen under the land to the northward. Steam was immediately made, and pushing close past the islands, we were enabled to work up the coast in a narrow lane of water between it and the pack.
We reached the north side of Creswell Bay on the following day, but, the wind changing, we saw the pack setting rapidly in upon the land, and it had already closed upon Fury Beach. Our only chance was now to seek a grounded mass of ice, and to hang on to it. We were indeed glad to get a little rest, and especially for our captain, who had not left the engines for twenty-four hours. But we lay in a most exposed position on an open coast without an indentation, the pack closing in rapidly before the wind and threatening us with the same fate as befell the Fury when she was driven on the shore about seven miles from our present position. Hanging on to this piece of ice with every hawser, we saw it gradually melting and breaking away, and at spring tides it began to float. On the 15th the gale shifted to the westward, and blew off the land; we watched the ice gradually easing off, and directly that we had room, we cast off under storm-sails, and succeeded in getting out of Regent Inlet and into Lancaster Sound on the following day. We entered Godhavn, in Greenland, on the night of August 26, and not having heard from our friends for more than two years, we did not even wait for daylight for our expected letters. The authorities on shore kindly sent all they had for us at once to the ship, and I suppose that letters from home were never opened with more anxiety.
Having a few repairs to do, especially to our rudder, which, with the spare one, had been smashed by the ice, we remained a day or two to patch it up for the passage home. Then leaving Godhavn on the 1st September, although the nights were extremely dark, and the weather stormy, with many bergs drifting about, we passed down Davis Strait without incident, and, rounding Cape Farewell on the 13th, we ran across the Atlantic with strong, fair winds. Captain M'Clintock landed at the Isle of Wight on the 20th, and on the 23rd the Fox entered the docks at Blackwall.
Our happy cruise was at an end, and by the mercy of Providence we were permitted to land again in England.
