Only A Week
Had Elapsed Since He Had Actually Ascertained The
Impracticability Of Reaching A Higher Latitude, - What
Likelihood Could There Be Of A Channel Having Been Opened
Up To The Northward During So Short An Interval?
Such
was the series of insoluble problems by which I posed
myself, as we stood vainly smacking our lips at the
island, which lay so tantalizingly beyond our reach.
Still, unpromising as the aspect of things might appear,
it would not do to throw a chance away; so I determined
to put the schooner round on the other tack, and run
westwards along the edge of the ice, until we found
ourselves again in the Greenland sea. Bidding, therefore,
a last adieu to Mount Misery, as its first discoverers
very appropriately christened one of the higher hills in
Bear Island, we suffered it to melt back into a fog, - out
of which, indeed, no part of the land had ever more than
partially emerged, - and with no very sanguine expectations
as to the result, sailed west away towards Greenland.
During the next four-and-twenty hours we ran along the
edge of the ice, in nearly a due westerly direction,
without observing the slightest indication of anything
approaching to an opening towards the North. It was weary
work, scanning that seemingly interminable barrier, and
listening to the melancholy roar of waters on its icy
shore.
At last, after having come about 140 miles since leaving
Bear Island, - the long, white, wave-lashed line suddenly
ran down into a low point, and then trended back with a
decided inclination to the North.
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