Thus,
after a laborious investigation which occupied one month, we had,
by a concurrence of unavoidable circumstances, returned to nearly
the same spot on which we had been on the 6th of August. To
consider what might have been effected in this interval, which
included the very best part of the navigable season, had we been
previously aware of the position and extent of the American
Continent about this meridian, is in itself certainly unavailing;
but it may serve to show the value of even the smallest
geographical information in seas where not an hour must be thrown
away or unprofitably employed.
In the afternoon an attempt was made to move, for the mere sake,
it must be confessed, of moving and keeping the people on the
alert, rather than with the slightest prospect of gaining any
ground; but, by the time that we had laid out the hawsers, the
small hole of water that had appeared again closed, and we were
obliged to remain as before.
At four A.M. on the 5th, we cast off and made sail for the land,
with a fresh breeze from the southeast. The ice was closely
packed, against the land near the passage I had intended to try,
and as it appeared slack to the eastward, I determined to run
between the southeast point of Baffin Island and the smaller
islands lying off it.
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