Arctic Expedition, eight hundred and seventy years ago. [Illustration: CAPE HAWKES.] For a week after leaving the island our progress northward was a constant struggle with the pack. Here, in the broad basin opposite Humboldt glacier, the Atlantic tidal wave through Baffin’s Sea terminates, and leaves an icy barrier to mark its limits. Had not that barrier consisted of much broken floes lying off a continuous coast-line, it would have been impossible to force any ship through it; but, aided as we were by the shore, twenty-eight miles were made good in a week. Never did the prospects of the Expedition seem less cheering, but we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that the “Polaris,” a fortnight later in the season, had made her magnificent run into Robeson Channel without much difficulty. With constant watchfulness and unremitting labour the way northward was won mile by mile. Every hour opened up some fresh possibility of advance, or some new danger to be combated. The tired watch-keepers found little rest during their short spell below. Almost every one “turned in” without undressing. The tearing and splintering of the ice along the ship’s sides, and the creaking and crushing as she charged the floes, made sleep difficult. “All hands up screw and rudder,” became a familiar order. And twice during the week it became necessary to cut docks in the floes to shelter the ships from pressure. On the first occasion, the heavy ice-saws, swung on tripods and worked by every hand on board, did their work readily; but on the second day they were found too short to reach through the thick ice, and nothing but rapid blasting with gunpowder saved the ships from an overwhelming crush. At length we found the rising tide flowing—not from the south as it had done, but from the unknown north. It was the 19th August. The barrier was past. Pools and lanes of water became more frequent, and on the 21st we steamed through a sea which Morton, leader of Kane’s northern party, might well call open, for the ice fragments floating in its intensely green water were not numerous enough to prevent a slight swell, which gave our wardroom lamps the old familiar swing. [Illustration: CAIRNS ON WASHINGTON IRVING ISLAND.]