hips had been concerned, there never had been
much cause for fear, the operation of docking having been carried out
by us more for the sake of practice than from necessity. We were
tightly beset until the following evening, when the ice as suddenly
moved off as it had come together; and then a scene of joyful
excitement took place, such as is only to be seen in the arctic
regions--every ship striving to be foremost in her escape from
imprisonment, and to lead ahead. Want of wind obliged the whalers and
Penny's brigs to be tracked along the floe-edge by the crews--a
laborious operation, which is done on our English canals by horses;
here, however, the powerful crews of fishermen, mustering from
thirty-five to fifty hands, fastened on by their track-belts to a
whale-line, and, with loud songs, made their vessels slip through the
water at an astonishing pace.

An odd proof of the unhandiness of such vessels as the "Resolute" and
"Assistance" was given to-day: the former endeavoured to tow herself
ahead by the aid of all her boats, a distance of about three or four
hundred yards, and was quite unable to do so, although the wind against
her hardly amounted to a cat's paw; the consequence was, that until the
steam vessels got hold, she was fast dropping astern of the whalers,
and, as was usually the case, every one's temper was going wrong. The
run was not a very long one, and in the heart of a fleet of icebergs we
again brought up: one whaler, "The Truelove," having turned back in
despair of a passage north-about to Pond's Bay.

[Headnote: _TRACKING AND TOWING._]

From our position a good view of Melville Bay was to be had, and a more
melancholy one, eye never rested upon. Surrounded as we were with
bergs, we had to climb a neighbouring mass to obtain a clear horizon;
the prospect to seaward was not cheering; and from the Devil's Thumb
northward, one huge glacier spread itself. The first sensation we felt
was that of pity for the poor land--pressed down and smothered under so
deadly a weight: here and there, a strip of cliff protruded, black and
bare, from the edge of the _mer-de-glace_, whose surface, rough and
unpleasing, was of a sombre yellowish tint, with occasional masses of
basalt protruding through it, like the uplifted hands of drowning men:
it seemed Earth's prayer for light and life; but the ice, shroud-like,
enveloped it, and would not give up the dead.

_July 9th._--Every day taught us something: we had le