The open sea continued but a short time, when they again became entangled among _bergs_, _floes_, and _hummocks_, and encountered the most fearful perils. Sometimes they anchored their vessels to icebergs, and sometimes to _floes_ or masses of _hummock_. On one of these occasions, while the cook, an active Frenchman, was upon a _berg_, making a place for an anchor, the mass of ice split beneath him, and he was dropped through the yawning fissure into the water, a distance of almost thirty feet. Fortunately the masses, as is often the case, did not close up again, but floated apart, and the poor cook was hauled on board more dead than alive, from excessive fright. It was in this fearful region that they first encountered _pack-ice_, and there they were locked in from the 7th to the 23d of July. During that time they were joined by the yacht _Prince Albert_, commanded by Captain Forsyth, of the Royal Navy, and together the three vessels were anchored, for a while, to an immense field of ice, in sight of the _Devil's Thumb_. That high, rocky peak, situated in latitude 74° 22' was about thirty miles distant, and with the dark hills adjacent, presented a strange aspect where all was white and glittering. The peak and the hills are masses of rock, with occasionally a lichen or a moss growing upon their otherwise naked surfaces. In the midst of the vast ice-field loomed up many lofty _bergs_, all of them in motion--slow and majestic motion. From the _Devil's Thumb_ the American vessels passed onward through the _pack_ toward Sabine's Islands, while the _Prince Albert_ essayed to make a more westerly course. They reached Cape York at the beginning of August. Far across the ice, landward, they discovered, through their glasses, several men, apparently making signals; and for a while they rejoiced in the belief that they saw a portion of Sir John Franklin's companions. Four men (among whom was our sailor-artist) were dispatched with a whale-boat to reconnoitre. They soon discovered the men to be Esquimaux, who, by signs, professed great friendship, and endeavored to get the voyagers to accompany them to their homes beyond the hills. They declined: and as soon as they returned to the vessel, the expedition again pushed forward, and made its way to Cape Dudley Digges, which they reached on the 7th of August.