een ten
and eleven months, and on the same reduced proportion of the other
species of provisions between three and four; and, although this
quantity is scarcely enough for working men for any length of
time, I believe the reduction of fuel was generally considered by
far the greater privation of the two.

As it appeared to me that considerable service might be rendered
by a general survey of the western coast of Baffin's Bay, which,
from Sir James Lancaster's Sound southward, might one day become
an important station for our whalers, I determined to keep as
close to that shore during our passage down as the ice and the
wind would permit; and as the experience of the former voyage had
led us to suppose that this coast would be almost clear of ice
during the whole of September, I thought that this month could not
be better employed than in the examination of its numerous bays
and inlets. Such an examination appeared to me more desirable,
from the hope of finding some new outlet into the Polar Sea in a
lower latitude than that of Sir James Lancaster's Sound; a
discovery which would be of infinite importance towards the
accomplishment of the Northwest Passage.

CHAPTER XI.

Progress down the Western Coast of Baffin's Bay.--Meet with the
Whalers.--Account of some Esquimaux in the Inlet called the River
Clyde.--Continue the Survey of the Coast till stopped by Ice in
the Latitude of 681/4 deg.--Obliged to run to the Eastward.--Fruitless
Attempts to regain the Land, and final Departure from the
Ice.--Remarks upon the probable Existence and Practicability of a
Northwest Passage, and upon the Whale Fishery.--Boisterous Weather
in Crossing the Atlantic.--Loss of the Hecla's Bowsprit and
Foremast.--Arrival in England.

The wind continuing fresh from the northward on the morning of the
1st of September, we bore up and ran along the land, taking our
departure from the flagstaff in Possession Bay, bearing W.S.W.
five miles, at half past four A.M.

The ice led us off very much to the eastward after leaving Pond's
Bay; and the weather became calm, with small snow towards
midnight. In this day's run, the compass-courses were occasionally
inserted in the logbook, being the first time that the magnetic
needle had been made use of on board the Hecla, for the purposes
of navigation, for more than twelve months.

On the morning of the 3d we passed some of the highest icebergs I
have ever seen, one of them being not less than