As early in the season as it was possible to travel, they set forth on their life-and-death struggle for safety. Reduced in strength, many of the men being sick, the laborious process of advancing their loads was even slower than the preceding year. However, by the 12th of July, they all reached their boat station in Batty Bay. Not until August 14 was a lane of water leading northward discovered, and, embarking at an early hour the following morning, they pursued their course with rising spirits. On the evening of the 16th, they were at the northeastern point of America with the open sea ahead of them. Icebergs were numerous, but their courage was gaining every moment, and they took small note of such obstacles. Passing through Barrow Strait, they made that day seventy-two miles. Delayed by contrary winds, they did not reach Navy Board Inlet until the 25th, where they harboured for the night. Early the following morning, they were aroused from sleep by the lookout man calling “a sail,” but though they made every effort to reach this ship, it passed them by unobserved. At ten o’clock they sighted another vessel which was becalmed. By hard rowing they reached her and found her to be the _Isabella_ of Hull, a ship in which Ross had made his first voyage to those seas. The captain and mate could hardly believe their eyes when Ross announced that he and his party were the survivors of the _Victory_, which had been given up for lost more than two years previously. Ross describes the scene on board that followed:— “The ludicrous soon took the place of all other feelings; in such a crowd, and such confusion, all serious thought was impossible, while the new buoyancy of our spirits made us abundantly willing to be amused by the scene which now opened. Every man was hungry, and was to be fed; all were ragged, and were to be clothed; there was not one to whom washing was not indispensable; nor one whom his beard did not deprive of all human semblance. All, everything, too, was to be done at once; it was washing, shaving, dressing, eating, all intermingled; it was all the materials of each jumbled together, while in the midst of all there were interminable questions to be asked and answered on both sides; the adventures of the _Victory_, our own escapes, the politics of England, and the news which was now four years old.