Great
caution should therefore be used under such circumstances in
attacking these ferocious creatures. We have always found a
boarding-pike the most useful weapon for this purpose. The lance
used by the whalers will not easily penetrate the skin, and a
musket-ball, except when very close, is scarcely more efficacious.
On the 17th, the margin of the ice appearing more open than we had
yet seen it, and there being some appearance of a "water-sky" to
the northwest, I was induced to run the ships into the ice, though
the weather was too thick to allow us to see more than a mile or
two in that direction. We were, at noon, in latitude 72 deg. 00' 21",
longitude 59 deg. 43' 04", the depth of water being one hundred and
ninety fathoms, on a muddy bottom. The wind shortly after died
away, as usual, and, after making a number tacks, in order to gain
all we could to the westward, we found ourselves so closely,
hemmed in by the ice on every side, that there was no longer room
to work the ships, and we therefore made them fast to a floe till
the weather should clear up. The afternoon was employed in taking
on board a supply of water from the floe. It may be proper at once
to remark that, from this time till the end of the voyage,
snow-water was exclusively made use of on board the ships for
every purpose.
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