tions, however, she was navigated into a little cove or harbor, where, being made fast to the rocks, she was at length rendered tolerably secure.
Captain James landed on the island, but found that although the summer was far advanced, the ponds were yet frozen. The ground was rocky and barren, and no traces of animals were visible in the snow, though it was evident from some hearths and remains of fire-wood which were seen, that human beings had not long before visited the place. Captain James continued here two days, and then sailed westward; but the masses of ice were still almost impenetrable. They grated the sides of the vessel with such violence that it was feared they would burst through the planks. On looking out from the mast-head scarcely an acre of open sea was visible: nothing was to be seen but a continued and irregular range of ice, towering in different places to an immense height. The ship was thus surrounded till the twenty-seventh of June, when, by a gale from the south-east, the ice opened, and she was enabled to make some way.
Though exposed to incessant danger by the immense masses of ice, which floated on the surface of the ocean, Captain James and his associates proceeded still westward, and entered Hudson's Strait about the beginning of July. On the fifteenth of that month, they arrived betwixt Digg's Island and Nottingham Island, but the summer was so cold and unfavorable that it was now evident there would be no possibility of proceeding much further northward this year. About a fortnight afterwards, they were so fast enclosed in the ice, that notwithstanding the ship had all her sails set, and it blew a strong breeze, she was immovable and as firmly fixed as if she had been in a dry dock. On this, the captain and many of the men walked out of her to amuse themselves upon the ice. Several of the crew now began to murmur, and to express great alarm, lest they should not be able either to proceed or return; and lest their provisions, which were beginning to fall short, would soon wholly fail. The captain encouraged them as well as he was able, and though he was aware their murmuring was not without a reason, he affected to ridicule their fears. Among other contrivances to amuse them, he took a quantity of spirits upon the ice, and there drank the king's health, although there was not a single man in the ship, and though she was at that time under all her sails. This was the twenty-eighth of July. On the thirtieth, they made some little way through the ice, part of the crew heaving the vessel along with their shoulders, whilst others at the same time, broke off the corners of the ice with mallets and iron crows, to clear the way. This labor was continued on the following day, and after much fatigue, they got the ship into thirty-five fathom water. All this time they were in latitude 58 deg. 45 minutes north, and a few days afterwards they were in an open sea free from ice. The Captain and his crew now joined in devout thanksgiving for their deliverance from the dangers to which they had been exposed.
A few days subsequently to this, whilst the ship was under sail, she struck upon some rocks that were concealed by the water, and received three such terrible blows, that the captain was fearful her masts would have been shivered to pieces, and he had no doubt that a hole had been beaten through her sides. But such was the strength of her timbers that she received little injury, and in a short time, was again out of danger.
On the twentieth of August, and in latitude 57 deg. north, they came within sight of land, part of the continent of North America, which the
