n in great numbers; and, the boats being sent in
pursuit of them, one was killed: it measured forty-six feet in length,
and yielded thirteen tons of blubber.

On the 6th and 7th of August, the two ships were again in great danger
from the ice. Whilst they were in the midst of the icebergs, they were
driven, by a gale of wind, so forcibly against each other, that their
sterns came violently in contact, and crushed to pieces a boat that
could not be removed in time; and, had not the vessels themselves been
excessively strong, they must have been totally destroyed. Attempts were
made to liberate them by sawing through the ice: not long after the
commencement of the operation, two immense masses of ice came violently
in contact, and one of them, fifty feet in height, suddenly broke. Its
elevated part fell back with a terrible crash; and overwhelmed, with its
ruins, the very spot which the officers had marked out as a place of
safety for the ships. Soon afterwards the ice opened, and they were once
more out of danger.

The gale having abated, and the weather, which of late had been snowy,
having cleared up, land was seen in latitude 75 degrees 54 minutes; and
on the 9th of August, the voyagers beheld, at a distance, upon the ice,
some people who seemed to be hallooing to the ships. At first they were
supposed to be shipwrecked sailors, whose vessel had perished in the
late gale; the ships, therefore, were steered nearer to the ice, and the
colours were hoisted. It was, however, now discovered, that they were
natives of the country, drawn by dogs on sledges, and with wonderful
velocity.

When they had approached near enough to the ships, for Sacheuse to be
heard, he hailed them in his own language, and they answered him; but
neither party seemed to be intelligible. For some time the strangers
remained silent; but, on the ships' tacking, they set up a shout, and
wheeled off, with amazing swiftness, towards the land.

On the ensuing day eight sledges were seen to approach the ships.
Sacheuse volunteered his services to go on the ice, with presents: this
was done in the hope of bringing the people to a parley. They halted at
some distance from the ships, and by the edge of a canal or chasm in the
ice, which prevented any fear or danger of attack from either party.
Sacheuse soon discovered that these Indians spoke a dialect of his own
language; and he invited them to approach nearer, but they replied, "No,
no, go you away;" a