A calm which prevailed during the night kept us quite stationary till three A.M. on the 23d, when a fresh breeze sprung up from the northward, and all sail was made for Cape Hotham, to the southward of which it was now my intention to seek a direct passage towards Behring’s Strait.  Wellington Channel, to the northward of us, was as open and navigable to the utmost extent of our view as any part of the Atlantic; but as it lay at right angles to our coarse, and there was still an opening at least ten leagues wide to the southward of Cornwallis Island, I could have no hesitation in deciding which of the two it was our business to pursue.  It is impossible to conceive anything more animating than the quick and unobstructed run with which we were favoured, from Beechey Island across to Cape Hotham.  Most men have, probably, at one time or another, experienced that elevation of spirits which is usually produced by rapid motion of any kind; and it will readily be conceived how much this feeling was heightened in us, in the few instances in which it occurred, by the slow and tedious manner in which the greater part of our navigation had been performed in these seas.

At noon we had reached the longitude of 94 deg. 43’ 15”, the latitude by observation being 74 deg. 20’ 52”, when we found that the land which then formed the western extreme on this side was a second island, which I called Griffith island.  The ice in this neighbourhood was covered with innumerable “hummocks,” and the floes were from seven to ten feet in thickness.

After various unsuccessful attempts to get through the ice which now lay in our way, we were at length so fortunate as to accomplish this object by “boring” through a number of heavy “streams,” which occasioned the ships to receive many severe shocks; and, at half an hour before midnight, we were able to, pursue our course, through “sailing ice,” to the westward.

The weather was at this time remarkably serene and clear; and although we saw a line of ice to the southward of us, lying in a direction nearly east and west, or parallel to the course on which we were steering, and some more land appeared to the westward, yet the space of open water was still so broad, and the prospect from the masthead, upon the whole, so flattering, that I thought the chances of our separation had now become greater than before; and I therefore considered it right to furnish Lieutenant Liddon with fresh instructions, and to appoint some new place of rendezvous in case of unavoidable separation from the Hecla.  At ten o’clock, after having had a clear view of the ice and of the land about sunset, and finding that there was at present no passage to the westward, we hauled off to the southeast, in the hope of finding some opening in the ice to the southward, by which we might get round in the desired direction.  We were encouraged in this hope by a dark “water-sky” to the southward; but, after running along the ice till half past eleven without perceiving any opening, we again bore up.  There was in this neighbourhood a great deal of that particular kind of ice called by the sailors “dirty ice,” on the surface of which were strewed sand, stones, and, in some instances, moss:  ice of this kind must, of course, at one time or other, have been in close contact with the land.