and to separate. Now or never were we to get through; for to lose this opportunity would have shut us out from crossing that year, and have left us no other resource than to return to Greenland for the winter. M'Clintock was not the man to turn back from his work, but would rather risk everything than leave a chance of our thus passing an inactive winter. The Fox was therefore steered into a promising lead or lane of water, and all sail made to the breeze. We were in high spirits, and talked of getting into the west water on the morrow. But at night a dense fog came on, the wind shifted to the southward, and the floes again began to close upon and around us. There was no help for us—we were beset, and it appeared hopelessly so; for the season was fast passing away, and the new ice beginning to form. On the 17th the wind increased, and the weather was dark and dreary. We struggled on for a few ship's lengths by the power of steam and canvas, and at night we unshipped the rudder, and lifted the screw, in anticipation of a squeeze.
During the three weeks following we lay in this position, endeavouring, by every means, to move the ship towards any visible pool or lane of water. Once only did our hopes revive. On September 7, the wind had again been from the north-westward; the ice had slackened, and we made a final and desperate attempt to reach some water seen to the northward of us. We were blasting with gunpowder, heaving, and warping during the whole day, but at night the floes again closed. We had not now even a retreat; the tinker had come round, as the seamen say, and soldered us in; and from that time until the 17th of April, 1858, we never moved, excepting at the mercy of the ice, and drifted by the winds and currents. We had lost all command over the ship, and were freezing in the moving pack.
Preparations for the winter were now made in earnest. We had thirty large dogs to feed besides ourselves, and we lost no opportunity of shooting seals. The sea-birds had all left for the southward; and the bears, which occasionally came to look at the ship, we could not chase, from the yet broken state of the ice. Provisions were got up upon deck, sledges and travelling equipages prepared, boats' crews told off, and every arrangement made by the Captain in the event of our being turned out of the ship. As the winter advanced, the ship was housed over with canvas, and covered with snow; and we had made up our minds for a winter in the pack and a drift—whither? This we could not tell, but we argued from the known constant set to the southward, out of Baffin's Sea and Davis' Straits, that if our little ship survived through the winter, we should be released in the southern part of Davis' Straits during the following summer.
We were then in latitude 75° 24' north, longitude 64° 31' west, and westward of us could be seen a formidable line of grounded bergs, towards which, by our observations, we were driving. Our next eight months were passed in a manner that would be neither interesting to read nor to relate; but a few extracts from a private journal will show our mode of life.
Sept. 16.—We passed the grounded bergs last night, after considerable
