fearing that our captain would be long
away, and knowing that the Admiralty despatches ought to be sent at
once, offered to take them himself. He left the command of the two
ships to Captain Pullen, and set out on the 12th of August with a
sledge and an indiarubber boat. He took the boatswain of the _North
Star_ (Harvey) with him, and three sailors, Madden, David Hook, and
me. We supposed that Sir Edward Belcher was to be found in the
neighbourhood of Beecher Cape, to the north of the channel; we made
for it with our sledge along the eastern coast. The first day we
encamped about three miles from Cape Innis; the next day we stopped
on a block of ice about three miles from Cape Bowden. As land lay
at about three miles' distance, Lieutenant Bellot resolved to go and
encamp there during the night, which was as light as the day; he tried
to get to it in his indiarubber canoe; he was twice repulsed by a
violent breeze from the south-east; Harvey and Madden attempted the
passage in their turn, and were more fortunate; they took a cord with
them, and established a communication between the coast and the
sledge; three objects were transported by means of the cord, but at
the fourth attempt we felt our block of ice move; Mr. Bellot called
out to his companions to drop the cord, and we were dragged to a great
distance from the coast. The wind blew from the south-east, and it
was snowing; but we were not in much danger, and the lieutenant might
have come back as we did."

Here Johnson stopped an instant to take a glance at the fatal coast,
and continued:

"After our companions were lost to sight we tried to shelter ourselves
under the tent of our sledge, but in vain; then, with our knives,
we began to cut out a house in the ice. Mr. Bellot helped us for half
an hour, and talked to us about the danger of our situation. I told
him I was not afraid. 'By God's help,' he answered, 'we shall not
lose a hair of our heads.' I asked him what o'clock it was, and he
answered, 'About a quarter-past six.' It was a quarter-past six in
the morning of Thursday, August 18th. Then Mr. Bellot tied up his
books, and said he would go and see how the ice floated; he had only
been gone four minutes when I went round the block of ice to look
for him; I saw his stick on the opposite side of a crevice, about
five fathoms wide, where the ice was broken, but I could not see him
anywhere. I called out, but no one answered. The wind was blowing
great guns.