The Ships Part Company—Robeson Channel—Strange Ice—Lincoln Bay—A Gale—A Rush North—The “Alert” reaches a Latitude never before attained by Ship, and enters a Polar Sea—Precarious Position—Disappointment—No Land to the North—Perennial Ice—Altered Prospects—Autumn Sledging—Pioneering—Dog-sledging—Romance and Reality. On the 26th August the ships parted company, but the beginning of the voyage was ominous. A quarter of an hour after the “Alert” had received the last well-wishes of her consort, she grounded on a sunken rock, and got off again only to be checked within sight of her starting-point by a close-packed barrier of heavy floes. Two days afterwards she pushed successfully past Cape Murchison, but soon afterwards became entangled in a chaos of broken floes of most formidable proportions, and was forced to take refuge in a shallow bay with, fortunately, no worse injury than a broken rudder. While the rudder was being replaced, three more musk oxen were obtained, and, with our larder thus replenished, we entered Robeson Channel. Heavy floes completely filled the strait, moving rapidly north and south with each tide. Sometimes the whole pack would check for a moment against a projecting point of coast, and then rush on again, leaving a lane of eddying water filled with broken fragments between it and the wall-like cliffs. Through this lane, with a precipice of rock and ice-foot on the left, and square-sided floes gliding irresistibly past on the right, the path northward lay. It changed continually, one moment opening out invitingly, and the next closing like the jaws of a vice. It required the most unwearying watchfulness to advance through such a lead, especially as the numerous little bays which had so often enabled us to hold our own further south had now given place to an almost unindented coast. Late on the afternoon of the 27th we passed a broad inlet, which was identified as Lincoln Bay of the “Polaris.” Twice we were forced back into its shelter. The second occasion was after an attempt had been made to force a passage through the pack away from shore. After an hour’s charging and crushing amongst heavy blocks, the little patches of water became smaller and smaller, and the ship became beset amongst broken floes of most unusual proportions. The level surface of many of them was as high as the ship’s sides out of water, and their whole thickness little if at all under eighty feet. The gentlest touch between such floes would be instant destruction; but, fortunately for us, there was much broken ice between them, and the ship was able to struggle away from the larger pieces till some change in the tide allowed her to escape back to the protecting land.