view to the northward; the water was free from ice, and
the voyagers now felt that they had entered the Polar Sea. The
magnificent opening through which their passage had been effected, from
Baffin's Bay, to a channel dignified with the name of _Wellington_, was
called, by Captain Parry, _Barron's Straits_.

In latitude 75 degrees 3 minutes, and longitude 103 degrees 44 minutes,
an island was discovered; and Captain Sabine, with two other officers,
landed on it. They found, in four different places, the remains of
Esquimaux habitations. These were from seven to ten feet in diameter;
and to each was attached a circle four or five feet in diameter, which
had probably been the fire-place. The whole encampment appeared to have
been deserted for several years; but recent footsteps of rein-deer and
musk-oxen were seen in many places.

The circumstances under which the voyagers were now sailing were,
perhaps, such as had never occurred since the early days of navigation.
There was land towards the north; ice, it was supposed, was towards the
south; the compasses by which the vessels had been steered, now varied
so much, that they had become useless; and all the surrounding objects
were obscured by a dense fog: consequently, there was now no other mode
of regulating the course of the ships, than by trusting to the
steadiness of the wind.

On the 2d of September a star was seen; the first that had been visible
for more than two months. Two days afterwards, at a quarter past nine in
the evening, the ships, in latitude 74 degrees 44 minutes, crossed the
meridian of 110 degrees from Greenwich, by which they became entitled to
L.5000; a reward offered by the British government to the first vessels
which should cross that longitude, to the north of America. In order to
commemorate the event, a lofty headland that they had just passed, was
called _Bounty Cape_. On the following day the ships, for the first time
since they had quitted the English coast, dropped anchor in a roadstead,
which was called the _Bay of the Hecla and Griper_; and the crews landed
on the largest of a group of islands, which Captain Parry named
_Melville Island_. The ensigns and pendants were hoisted, as soon as the
vessels had anchored; and it excited, in the voyagers, no ordinary
sensations of pleasure, to see the British flag waving, for the first
time, in regions, which, hitherto, had been considered beyond the limits
of the habitable world.

The wind n