ts.

On the 10th, a short tow; and in company with a portion of the whalers,
for several had retreated, we again had to dock, to escape nipping from
the ice, and on the morrow, a similar scene of hurry and excitement
took place when liberation came.

[Headnote: _FAVOURABLE PROSPECT._]

_Thursday, 11th._--Seven of the most enterprising whalers still hung on
our heels, and to-day found us all at a bar beyond which there was a
sea of water. Patience! was the "_mot d'ordre_;" and it vented itself
in a number of dinners and the winding-up of letters; for we all felt
that the hour of separation from the whalers would soon arrive. They
all were delighted with the performance of the steam vessels in the
ice, and quizzed our crews for sitting at their ease, whilst they had
to drag like horses. Captain Penny, likewise, candidly acknowledged
that he never thought they could have answered so well; and regretted
that he had not had a steam vessel. Our seamen fully appreciated the
good service the screws had done them: they had now been eleven days in
the ice, during every day of which period they had witnessed it working
effectually under every circumstance; they had seen the crews of the
whalers labouring at the track-line, at the oar, and in making and
shortening sail, both by day and by night; whilst our crews had nothing
to do beyond taking the ships in tow and casting them off again;
already I observed a really sincere anxiety upon all their parts for
the safety of the "screw." I heard from henceforth inquiries amongst
them, whenever a shock took place, "Whether _she_ was all right?" or
to my orders, a ready response--"All right, sir! she is all free of the
ice!"

At night the bar opened, and giving the "Lady Franklin" a jerk into the
water beyond, the "Intrepid" and "Pioneer" rattled away with the ships
in tow, as hard as steam could take them. Oh, for one run of ninety
miles! There was open water ahead; but, alas! we could only get three
miles an hour out of our vessel--alone, we could have gone five; making
in a day's work the difference between seventy-two and one hundred and
twenty miles.

By two o'clock in the morning we had outrun both Penny and the whalers;
and, could we only have gone faster, assuredly the passage of Melville
Bay would have been that day effected. The land-floe was still fast,
reaching twenty-five or thirty miles off shore, and the pack had
drifted off some ten or fifteen miles; between the t