hom,
MacClintock, had consumed fifteen months in reaching this spot; but
that was little, indeed nothing, if he could not make Bellot Sound;
being unable to return, he would be kept a prisoner until the next
year.

Hence he took upon himself the care of examining the coast; he went up
to the lookout, and on Saturday passed many hours there.

The crew were all acquainted with the situation of the ship; an
unbroken silence reigned on board; the engine was slackened; the
_Forward_ ran as near shore as possible; the coast was lined with ice
which the warmest summers could not melt; a practised eye was needed
to make out an entrance through them.

Hatteras was comparing his charts with the coast-line. The sun having
appeared for a moment at noon, Shandon and Wall took an observation,
the result of which was at once told him.

There was half a day of anxiety for all. But suddenly, at about two
o'clock, these words were shouted from aloft,--

"Head to the west, and put on all steam."

The brig obeyed at once, turning to the point directed; the screw
churned the water, and the _Forward_ plunged under a full head of
steam between two swiftly running ice-streams.

The path was found; Hatteras came down to the quarter-deck, and the
ice-master went aloft.

"Well, Captain," said the doctor, "we have entered this famous sound
at last!"

"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but entering is not all, we have got to get
out of it too."

And with these words he went to his cabin.

"He is right," thought the doctor; "we are in a sort of trap, without
much space to turn about in, and if we had to winter here!--well, we
shouldn't be the first to do it, and where others lived through it,
there is no reason why we should not!"

The doctor was right. It was at this very place, in a little sheltered
harbor called Port Kennedy by MacClintock himself, that the _Fox_
wintered in 1858. At that moment it was easy to recognize the lofty
granite chains, and the steep beaches on each side.

Bellot Sound, a mile broad and seventeen long, with a current running
six or seven knots, is enclosed by mountains of an estimated height of
sixteen hundred feet; it separates North Somerset from Boothia; it is
easy to see that there is not too much sailing room there. The
_Forward_ advanced carefully, but still she advanced; tempests are
frequent in this narrow pass, and the brig did not escape their usual
violence; by Hatteras's orders, all the topsail-yard