--Every
effort to extricate them from this helpless situation proved
fruitless for more than two hours, when the Hecla was at length
backed out, and succeeded in pushing through another part of the
stream in which a small opening appeared just at that moment. All
our boats were immediately despatched to the assistance of the
Griper, which still remained beset, and which no effort could move
in any direction We at length resorted to the expedient of sending
a whale-line to her from the Hecla, and then, making all sail upon
the latter ship, we succeeded in towing her out, head to wind,
till she was enabled to proceed in clear water. The crossing of
this stream of ice, of which, the breadth scarcely exceeded three
hundred yards, occupied us constantly for more than five hours,
and may serve as an example of the detention to which ships are
liable in this kind of navigation.
Early on the morning of the 21st the fog cleared away, and
discovered to us the land called by Davis, Hope Sanderson and the
Woman's Islands, being the first land we had seen in sailing
northward into Baffin's Bay, from the lat. of 633/4 deg. We found
ourselves in the midst of a great number of very high icebergs, of
which I counted, from the crow's-nest, eighty-eight, besides many
smaller ones.
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