Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/127

 *cord it to their credit, that throughout a voyage of unusual peril and exposure they had never quailed in the presence of danger, and they had to a man exhibited the most satisfactory evidence of manly endurance.

The reader will readily understand that to me the failure to cross the Sound was a serious disappointment. Hoping, as heretofore stated, to reach the west coast, and there secure a harbor in some convenient place between latitude 79° and 80°, it was evident to me that in failing to do this my chances of success with sledges during the following spring were greatly jeopardized. Besides—and this to me was the most painful reflection—my vessel was, apparently, so badly injured as to be unfit for any renewal of the attempt the next year.