A herd of seahorses being seen lying on a piece of ice, our boat succeeded in killing one of them.  These animals usually lie huddled together like pigs, one over the other, and are so stupidly tame as to allow a boat to approach them within a few yards without moving.  When at length they are disturbed, they dash into the water in great confusion.  It may be worth remarking, as a proof how tenacious the walrus sometimes is of life, that the animal killed to-day struggled violently for ten minutes after it was struck, and towed the boat twenty or thirty yards, after which the iron of the harpoon broke; and yet it was found, on examination, that the iron barb had penetrated both auricles of the heart.  A quantity of the blubber was put into casks, as a winter’s supply of lamp-oil.

A large bear being seen on a piece of ice, near which we were passing on the 10th, a boat was despatched in pursuit, and our people succeeded in killing and towing it on board.  As these animals sink immediately on being mortally wounded, some dexterity is requisite to secure them, by first throwing a rope over the neck, at which many of the Greenland seamen are remarkably expert.  It is customary for the boats of the whalers to have two or three lines coiled in them, which not only gives them great stability, but, with good management, makes it difficult for a bear, when swimming, to put his paw upon the gunwale, which they generally endeavour to do; whereas, with our boats, which are more light and crank, and therefore very easily heeled over, I have more than once seen a bear on the point of taking possession of them.  Great caution should therefore be used under such circumstances in attacking these ferocious creatures.  We have always found a boarding-pike the most useful weapon for this purpose.  The lance used by the whalers will not easily penetrate the skin, and a musket-ball, except when very close, is scarcely more efficacious.

On the 17th, the margin of the ice appearing more open than we had yet seen it, and there being some appearance of a “water-sky” to the northwest, I was induced to run the ships into the ice, though the weather was too thick to allow us to see more than a mile or two in that direction.  We were, at noon, in latitude 72 deg. 00’ 21”, longitude 59 deg. 43’ 04”, the depth of water being one hundred and ninety fathoms, on a muddy bottom.  The wind shortly after died away, as usual, and, after making a number tacks, in order to gain all we could to the westward, we found ourselves so closely, hemmed in by the ice on every side, that there was no longer room to work the ships, and we therefore made them fast to a floe till the weather should clear up.  The afternoon was employed in taking on board a supply of water from the floe.  It may be proper at once to remark that, from this time till the end of the voyage, snow-water was exclusively made use of on board the ships for every purpose.  During the summer months, it is found in abundance in the pools upon the floes and icebergs; and in the winter, snow was dissolved in the coppers for our daily consumption.  The fog cleared away in the evening, when we perceived that no farther progress could be made through the ice, into which we sailed to the westward about twelve miles.  We were therefore once more under the necessity of returning to the eastward, lest a change of wind should beset the ships in their present situation.