While Buchan and Franklin were in difficulties in the ice off Spitzbergen, Ross and Parry with the _Isabella_ (385 tons) and the _Alexander_ (252 tons) were searching the shores of Baffin’s Bay for the North-West Passage. They had set sail from Lerwick on May 3, and by the end of June they were past Disco Island. Here, through the medium of John Sackheuse, their invaluable interpreter, they opened up very friendly relations with the natives, in whose honour they gave a ball, which afforded immense entertainment to all concerned. After this, progress became slower, for the sea was cumbered with ice, and the crew were compelled to adopt the tedious expedient of “tracking” the ship through it, that is to say, of going ashore with a rope and dragging her through the obstruction. At the end of July, however, Ross succeeded in reaching Melville Bay, which proved to be one of the most important discoveries of the voyage, for the sea was full of whales, and has proved a lucrative hunting-ground for whalers ever since. As they were nearing the northern shores of the Bay the voyage of the _Isabella_ and the _Alexander_ came near to being summarily ended by a terrific gale which drove the ice upon them in such quantities that they were almost overwhelmed by it. Fortunately they both survived, and shortly after the storm had subsided, a number of natives with dog-sleighs were seen in the distance. All attempts at enticing them nearer by means of presents proved vain, but eventually the interpreter, Sackheuse, succeeded in getting into communication with them. At first they were inclined to distrust the strangers, imagining that the ships were some kind of weird animals with wings which had come either from the sun or the moon, they could not be sure which, with the express object of doing them an injury. The misunderstanding, however, was eventually cleared up, and they were induced to visit the ships, where everything that they saw was a source of infinite interest to them, with the exception of the ship’s biscuit and salted meat, for which they expressed supreme disdain. Pressing on north, the explorers found the sea fairly clear of ice, and they soon passed Cape Dudley Digges, Wolstenholme Island and Whale Sound, none of which had been visited since Baffin’s day, and which cartographers had thought fit to erase from the maps, believing that Baffin had been the victim of hallucinations.