the _Fox_, for in coming out, the wind fell suddenly calm, and the steam being down, we were drifting with a strong tide fast upon the rocks, and we only just towed the ship clear with all our boats. We now steered for Diskoe, and after passing some magnificent icebergs, one of which we found by measurement to be 270 feet above the sea, we saw the precipitous cliffs of the island, entered the harbour of Godhavn at night, and sailed on the following day for the beautiful fiord of Diskoe, where a smart young Esquimaux, Christian, by name, was received on board, as dog-driver to the expedition. We had not time to examine this fine fiord, which has never been explored, and which is thought to be of great extent; nor had we time to visit the Salmon River; but our guide brought us a few fish, and with salmon-trout and ptarmigan for breakfast, and a bouquet of flowers from the ladies of Godhavn upon the gun-room table, we had no cause to complain of the Arctic regions so far. We next steered for the Waigat Straits, intending to take in coals from the mines there. As we passed Godhavn, the Esquimaux guide seated himself in his kyack on the deck, and, notwithstanding a rough sea, he was launched out of the gangway at his own request; a feat wonderful to us, but evidently not strange to him, as he paddled away to the shore without further notice. The native kyack is so small and crank, that the natives cannot get in or out of it alongside a ship; but are generally pulled up or lowered with it in the bight of two ropes’ ends. As we approached the Waigat, thousands of eider ducks covered the water, and we shot many of the younger ones, but the old birds were too crafty for us, and kept out of range. We now never lost an opportunity of adding to our stock of fresh provisions, which already began to make a show in the rigging, where we could feast our eyes upon salmon, eider ducks, looms, cod-fish, ptarmigan, and seal beef, besides two old goats, that we had purchased at Frederickshaab. We entered the Waigat on August 3rd, on a beautiful day; and for wild and desolate grandeur, I suppose these straits have no equal--lofty, rugged mountains here abruptly facing the sea, or there presenting a sloping moss-covered declivity--mountain torrents, and the small streams, which, leaping over the very summits, at an elevation of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, appear from beneath like threads of spun glass. In some places may be seen the foot of a glacier high up a ravine, as if there arrested in its course, or not yet grown sufficiently to fill up the valley, and bring its blight down to the sea; in other places beautiful valleys, green and grass-clothed, where the hare and ptarmigan love to pass their short summer with their young broods. The sea itself is scarcely less picturesque than the land; for thousands of icebergs, of every size and fantastic form, cast off from the ice-streams of the mainland, sail continually in these beautiful straits.