“The dreaded reality of wintering in the pack is gradually forcing itself upon my mind; but I must not write on this subject: it is bad enough to brood over it unceasingly. We can see the land all round Melville Bay, from Cape Walker nearly to Cape York. Petersen is indefatigable at seal shooting; he is so anxious to secure them for our dogs. He says they must be hit in the head; ‘if you hit him in the beef that is not good,’ meaning that a flesh wound does not prevent their escaping under the ice. Petersen and Christian practise an Esquimaux mode of attracting the seals. They scrape the ice, thus making a noise like that produced by a seal in making a hole with its flippers, and then place one end of a pole in the water and put their mouths close to the other end, making noises in imitation of the snorts and grunts of their intended victims. Whether the device is successful or not I do not know, but it looks laughable enough. “Christian came back a few days ago, like a true seal hunter, carrying his kaiyack on his head, and dragging a seal behind him. Only two years ago Petersen returned across this bay with Dr. Kane’s retreating party. He shot a seal, which they devoured, and which, under Providence, saved their lives. Petersen is a good ice pilot, knows all these coasts as well as, or better than, any man living, and, from long experience and habits of observation, is almost unerring in his prognostications of the weather. Besides his great value to us as interpreter, few men are better adapted for Arctic work—an ardent sportsman, an agreeable companion, never at a loss for occupation or amusement, and always contented and sanguine. But we have, happily, many such dispositions in the _Fox_. “30th. The whole distance across Melville Bay is 170 miles; of this we have performed about 120, forty of which we have drifted in the last fourteen days. “Yesterday we set to work as usual to warp the ship along, and moved her ten feet. An insignificant hummock then blocked up the narrow passage. As we could not push it before us, a two-pound blasting charge was exploded, and the surface ice was shattered; but such an immense quantity of broken ice came up from beneath that the difficulty was greatly increased instead of being removed. This is one of the many instances in which our small vessel labours under very great disadvantages in ice navigation; we have neither sufficient manual power, steam power, nor impetus to force the floes asunder. I am convinced that a steamer of moderate size and power, with a crew of forty or fifty men, would have got through a hundred miles of such ice in less time than we have been beset.”