While our two ships lay waiting for a chance of escape from Discovery Bay, we began to be impressed with the fact that it was one thing to decide on the return of an expedition from a point so far north, and quite another to accomplish it without a second winter. Even yet the ships were farther north than any of their predecessors had wintered. Where many a good ship had failed, ours might not succeed. We were yet one hundred and ninety miles north of where Kane was at last compelled to abandon his ship. The “Polaris,” a steamer at least as well fitted for ice-work as either of our ships, left her ribs and timbers more than two hundred miles to the south. British expeditions entangled in the ice of the Parry Group had more than latitude to contend with, but the “Resolute” was abandoned 280, the “Investigator” 450, and the “Erebus” and “Terror” 700 miles to the south of our position. The strong set through Smith’s Sound was greatly in our favour, but nevertheless two hundred miles of ice-choked channel lay between us and the head of Baffin’s Sea, and beyond it Melville Bay would still separate us from the most northern Danish settlement. Young ice was already forming where the floes were still, and a little more delay would compel us to pass an objectless, inactive winter where we were, and trust to next year for a better chance of return. No one in either of our ships had at this time a doubt of our success, but nevertheless such considerations had their weight. There was accordingly a general feeling of relief on board when, on the evening of 18th August, the officer of the watch reported that Captain Nares, who had as usual climbed to the top of the island, was holding out both his arms as a signal to get up steam in both boilers. The gate of pack to the southward showed some signs of opening, and we might get through by pushing amongst the broken ice between the floes. But the inertia of the fragments was too much for the ships even charging at full speed, and we were forced back to the shelter of the island with the second rudder badly damaged. [Illustration: PLATE XVI.—THE LAST OF THE PALEOCRYSTIC FLOE, KANE’S OPEN POLAR SEA, CAPE CONSTITUTION, FRANKLIN AND CROZIER ISLANDS IN THE DISTANCE, AUGUST 20, 1876.—p. 81.