Our return to the ship was not accomplished without much difficulty, in consequence of our little harbour of refuge having filled with drifting ice, during the time we were on shore, which beset our boat. We were therefore compelled to haul and drag it over and through innumerable fragments of ice, reaching the ship wet and fatigued, but delighted with the intelligence we possessed and the prospect of pushing on.
_Friday, August 20th._--At one o'clock this morning, being the top of high water, we made another start.
Taking advantage of the different broad lanes of water, we steamed rapidly past Cape Norton Shaw, and opened out Scoresby Bay--a grand harbour that would suit admirably for a ship's winter quarters, provided animal life existed. From the appearance of the land we imagined that game would be found in large quantities. A perfect cone-shaped hill on the north-west side is a very prominent feature of this bay. Indeed, the entire coast along which we are passing is composed of long ranges of hills more or less coniform, varying from one to two thousand feet in height. The coast line is very imperfectly delineated on our charts, the distance between the various bays and headlands are erroneous, and the positions are wrong; the error always being that they are placed too much to the northward.
Off Cape McClintock we had another narrow escape from being severely nipped, in consequence of attempting to pass through a channel between two closing floes. Although jammed for a short time, the pressure was not very great, and, the nip easing, the ship was released. Passing Cape Collinson we were again obliged to make fast to a large floe, as all the leads to the northward had closed up, thereby preventing farther progress.
The ice was moving rapidly to the southward--the whole pack drifting bodily--at the rate of from one and a half to two knots an hour. The floe to which we were secured was kept stationary by a couple of grounded icebergs that effectually resisted all its efforts to extricate itself. This rapid drift seemed to indicate the presence of a "North Water," or at any rate a very loose pack.
Advantage was taken of our temporary delay to establish a small depôt of provisions, consisting of two hundred and forty rations, near Cape Collinson, for the use of a travelling party which, according to existing arrangements, would be dispatched to the southward by the "Discovery" during the following year, for the purpose of visiting Cape Isabella, and bringing up any letters that might have been deposited there for us.