tent, he then thought it probable that a communication would one day be found between it and Hudson’s Bay, either through Sir Thomas Rowe’s Welcome, or perhaps through Repulse Bay, neither of which had yet been satisfactorily examined. He thus continues:
“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 cliffs on the south side of this bay, to which I gave the name of Port Bowen, resemble, in many places, ruined towers and battlements; and fragments of the rocks were constantly falling from above. At the head of the bay is an extensive piece of low flat ground, intersected by numerous rivulets, which, uniting at a short distance from the beach, formed a deep and rapid stream, near the mouth of which we landed.” The latitude observed here was 73° 12' 11", and the longitude, by chronometers, 89° 02' 08".
“Soon after I returned on board, a light breeze from the southward enabled us to steer towards Prince Leopold’s Isles, which we found to be more encumbered with ice than before. Three or four miles to the northward of Port Bowen we discovered another opening, having every appearance of a harbour, with an island near the entrance; I named it after Captain Samuel Jackson, R.N.”
Aug. 17th. – “We had a fresh breeze from the S.S.W., with so thick a fog, that in spite of the most unremitting attention to the sails and the steerage, the ships were constantly receiving heavy shocks from the loose masses of ice with which the sea was covered, and which, in the present state of the weather, could not be distinguished at a sufficient distance to avoid them. On the weather clearing up in the afternoon, we saw, for the first time, a remarkable bluff headland, which forms the north-eastern point of the entrance into Prince Regent’s Inlet, and to which I gave the name of Cape York.
“On the 18th, there being still no prospect of getting a single mile to the westward, in the neighbourhood of Prince Leopold’s Isles, and a breeze having freshened up from the eastward in the afternoon, I determined to stand over once more towards the northern shore, in order to try what could there be done towards effecting our passage. At 9 p.m., after beating for several hours among ‘floes’ and ‘streams’ of ice, we got into clear water near that coast, where we found some swell from the eastward. There was just light enough at midnight to enable us to read and write in the cabin.
