the following day another man was much hurt by a loaded pledge running against him. On the 30th, the wind freshening up from the S.S.W. they found the ice gradually more and more open, and made by rowing, though in a very winding channel, five miles of northing. Captain Parry here says:
“Our latitude, observed at noon, July 1st, was 81° 30' 41". It was more than an hour before we could get away from the small piece of ice on which we slept, the masses beyond being so broken up, and so much in motion, that we could not at first venture to launch the boats. After crossing several pieces, we at length got into a good “lead” of water, four or five miles in length; two or three of which, as on the preceding day, occurred under the lee of a floe, being the second we had yet seen that deserved that name[1]. We then passed over four or five small floes, and across the pools of water that lay betwixt them. The ice was now less broken up, and sometimes tolerably level; but from 6 to 18 inches of soft snow lay upon it in every part, obliging us to make at least two, and sometimes three journeys with our loads.
“As soon as we landed on a floe-piece. Lieutenant Ross and myself generally went on a-head, while the boats were unloading and hauling up, in order to select the easiest road for them. The sledges then followed in our track, Messrs. Beverly and Bird accompanying them; by which the snow was much trodden down and the road consequently improved. When we arrived at the other end of the floe, or came to any difficult place, we mounted one of the highest hummocks of ice near at hand (many of which were from l5 to 25 feet above the sea), in order to obtain a better view around us; and nothing could well exceed the dreariness which such a view presented. The eye wearied itself in vain to find an object but ice and sky to rest upon; and even the latter was often hidden from our view by the dense and dismal fogs which so generally prevailed. In some cases. Lieutenant Ross and myself took separate routes to try the ground, which kept us almost continually floundering among deep snow and water. The sledges having then been brought up, as far as we had explored, we all went back for the boats; each crew, when the road was tolerable, dragging their own, and the officers labouring equally hard with the men. It was thus we proceeded for nine miles out of every ten that we travelled over ice; for it was very rarely indeed that we met with a surface sufficiently level and hard to drag all our loads at one journey; and, in a great many instances, we had to traverse the same road five times over. We were sometimes five minutes together in moving a single empty boat, with all our united strength.”
- ↑ A “lead” is a channel through the ice, and a ship is said to “take the right lead” when she follows a channel conducting her into a more navigable sea, and vice versa.
