For the two following days we continued closely beset, but still driving to the eastward across the mouth of Weyde Bay, which is here six or seven miles in breadth, and appeared to be very deep, the land in the centre receding to a distance of full eight leagues.  In the afternoon of the 6th, we had driven within five miles of a point of land, beyond which, to the eastward, it seemed to recede considerably; and this appearing to answer tolerably to the situation of Muscle or Mussel Bay, as laid down in most of the charts, I was very anxious to discover whether we could here find shelter for the ship.  A lane of water leading towards the land at no great distance from us, I hauled a boat over the ice and then rowed on shore, accompanied by Lieutenant Foster and some of the other officers, taking with me another small store of provisions, to be deposited here, as a future resource for my party, should we approach this part of the coast.

Landing at half past six P.M., and leaving Mr. Bird to bury the provisions, Lieutenant Foster and myself walked without delay to the eastward, and, on ascending the point, found that there was, as we had supposed, an indentation in the coast on the other side.  We now began to conceive the most flattering hopes of discovering something like a harbour for the ship, and pushed on with all possible haste to examine the place farther; but, after three hours walking, were much mortified, on arriving at its head, to find that it was nothing but an open bay, entirely exposed to the inroads of all the northern ice, and therefore quite unfit for the ship.  We returned to the boat greatly disappointed, and reached the Hecla at 1.30 A.M. on the 7th.

I do not remember to have ever experienced in these regions such a continuance of beautiful weather as we now had, during more than three weeks that we had been on the northern coast of Spitzbergen.  Day after day we had a clear and cloudless sky, scarcely any wind, and, with the exception of a few days previous to the 23d of May, a warm temperature in the shade, and quite a scorching sun.  On the 3d of June we had a shower of rain, and on the 6th it rained pretty hard for two or three hours.  After the 1st of June we could procure abundance of excellent water upon the ice, and by the end of the first week the floe-pieces were looking blue with it in some parts, and the snow had everywhere become too soft to bear a man’s weight.

On the 7th, the ship, still closely beset, had drifted much more to the eastward, being within a mile of the spot where the provisions had been deposited the preceding evening.  There was now no other ice between us and the land except the floe to which we had been so long attached; and round this we were occasionally obliged to warp, whenever a little slackening of the ice permitted, in order to prevent our getting too near the rocks.  In this situation of suspense and anxiety we still remained until the evening of the 8th, when a breeze at length springing up from