Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/302

272 shore; and, after running ten or twelve miles, we found ourselves embayed in fixed ice, between a high, rocky island and the mainland. The broken ice was at the same time rapidly closing in upon us; but, by laborious efforts for two hours, we extricated ourselves from this critical situation, and safely landed to windward of the press at midnight. There were foot-prints of Esquimaux on the shore, about a week old; and the stone circles of five tents. Seven sledges, with a variety of other articles (including some of the wide-spread remnants of Dr. Richardson's boats), were laid up close at hand.

The receding tide having separated the ice from the beach, we set out at 10 o'clock the following night, and crept along shore for about three hours, when we again reached its unbroken limit. We pitched our tents on rugged rocks, surrounded by scenery of singular wildness and sterility.

On the 21st a sultry land breeze further disunited the ice, and enabled us, by cutting our way at the different projections, to make the circuit of a bay to the high, rocky cape which Franklin doubled on the 22nd of July, 1821. Here ice of immense thickness still clung to the crags; and in two or three places, where there