breeze from the N. E., she passed the 74th degree, and found herself in Melville Sound, one of the largest in those regions. It was Captain Parry who first traversed it in his great expedition of 1819, and it was for this his crew gained the prize of £5,000 offered by Government.
CHAPTER XVIII
A WHALE CHASE
Melville Sound, though perfectly navigable, was not free from ice. Extensive ice-fields stretched beyond as far as the eye could reach, with solitary icebergs appearing here and there, standing motionless, as if anchored firmly to the glaciers.
But the Forward found good leads everywhere, and steamed rapidly along, in spite of the variable wind, which kept shifting from one point of the compass to another.
The sudden changes of the wind are most remarkable in these Arctic Seas. Often, but a few minutes will separate a dead calm from a strong tempest, as Hatteras found to his cost on the 23rd of June, just as he reached the middle of the immense bay.
The most constant winds are those which blow from the polar ice-belt towards the open water, and these are extremely cold. On this day the thermometer sank several degrees, and the wind suddenly veered south. Thick snow began to fall, and such violent gusts of wind arose, that Hatteras ordered all the sails to be close-reefed; but, before his commands could be executed, one of the smaller yards was already torn away.
Hatteras never left the deck while the gale lasted, though the fury of the blast compelled him to change his position. There he stood, issuing his orders with the most imperturbable calmness, though the sea was lashed mountains high by the raging tempest, and his brig was tossed up and down on the waves like a child's toy—now borne aloft perpendicularly on the crest of some gigantic billow, her steel prow gleaming for an instant in the light; and then precipitated into an abyss amidst clouds of smoke, her stern and screw rising completely out of the water; rain and snow all the time falling in torrents.
