On The 21st Captain Parry Abandoned The Undertaking, And Returned To
The Bay Which Was Called After The Two Ships.
Here they lay ten months; and
the arrangements made by Captain Parry for the safety of the vessels, and
For the health, comfort, and even the amusement of the crew, were planned
and effected with such admirable good sense, that listlessness and fatigue
were strangers, even among sailors, a class of men who, above all others,
it would have been apprehended, would have soon wearied of such a
monotonous life. The commencement of winter was justly dated from the 14th
of September, when the thermometer suddenly fell to 9 deg.. On the 4th of
November the sun descended below the horizon, and did not appear again till
the 8th of February. A little before and after what in other places is
called the shortest day, but which to them was the middle of their long
night, there was as much light as enabled them to read small print, when
held towards the south, and to walk comfortably for two hours. Excessive
cold, as indicated by the thermometer, took place in January: it then sunk
from 30 deg. to 40 deg. below Zero: on the 11th of this month it was at 49 deg.; yet no
disease, or even pain or inconvenience was felt in consequence of this most
excessive cold, provided the proper precautions were used; nor did any
complaint arise from the extreme and rapid change of temperature to which
they were exposed, when, as was often the case, they passed from the
cabins, which were kept heated up to 60 deg. or 70 deg., to the open air, though
the change in one minute was in several instances 120 deg. of temperature.
Cold, however, as January was, yet the following month, though, as we have
already observed, it again exhibited the sun to them, was much colder; on
the 15th of February the thermometer fell to 55 deg. below Zero, and remained
for fifteen hours not higher than 54 deg.. Within the next fifteen hours it
gradually rose to 34 deg.. But though the sun re-appeared early in February,
they had still a long imprisonment to endure; and Captain Parry did not
consider it safe to leave their winter quarters till the 1st of August,
when they again sailed to the westward: their mode of proceeding was the
same as that which they had adopted the preceding year, viz. crawling along
the shore, within the fast ice; in this manner they got to the west end of
Melville Island. But all their efforts to proceed further were of no avail.
Captain Parry was now convinced, that somewhere to the south-west of this
there must be an immoveable obstacle, which prevented the ice dispersing in
that direction, as it had been found to do in every other part of the
voyage.
At last, on the 16th of August, further attempts were given up, and Captain
Parry determined to return to the eastward, along the edge of the ice, in
order that he might push to the southward if he could find an opening.
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