--Return to the Northward.--Pass Barrow's Strait,
and enter the Polar Sea.
We were now about to enter and to explore that great sound or
inlet which has obtained a degree of celebrity beyond what it
might otherwise have been considered to possess, from the very
opposite opinions which have been held with regard to it. To us it
was peculiarly interesting, as being the point to which our
instructions more particularly directed our attention; and I may
add, what I believe we all felt, it was that point of the voyage
which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition,
according as one or other of the opposite opinions alluded to
should be corroborated. It will readily be conceived, then, how
great our anxiety was for a change of the westerly wind and swell,
which, on the 1st of August, set down Sir James Lancaster's Sound,
and prevented our making much progress. Several whales were seen
in the course of the day, and Mr. Allison remarked that this was
the only part of Baffin's Bay in which he had ever seen young
whales; for it is a matter of surprise to the whalers in general,
that they seldom or never meet with young ones on this fishery, as
they are accustomed to do in the seas of Spitzbergen.
The Griper continued to detain us so much, that I determined on
making the best of our way to the westward, and ordered the Hecla
to be hove to in the evening, and sent Lieutenant Liddon an
instruction, with some signals, which might facilitate our meeting
in case of fog; and I appointed as a place of rendezvous the
meridian of 85 deg.
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