After midnight the road became, if possible, worse, and the prospect to the northward more discouraging than before; nothing but loose and very small pieces of ice being in sight, over which the boats were dragged almost entirely by a “standing-pull.”  The men were so exhausted with their day’s work, that it was absolutely necessary to give them something hot for supper, and we again served a little cocoa for that purpose.  They were also put into good spirits by our having killed a small seal, which, the following night, gave us an excellent supper.  The meat of these young animals is tender, and free from oiliness; but it certainly has a smell and a look which would not have been agreeable to any but very hungry people like ourselves.  We also considered it a great prize on account of its blubber, which gave us fuel sufficient for cooking six hot messes for our whole party, though the animal only weighed thirty pounds in the whole.

Setting out at half past seven in the evening, we found the sun more distressing to the eyes than we had ever yet had it, bidding defiance to our crape veils and wire-gauze eye-shades;[022] but a more effectual screen was afforded by the sun becoming clouded about nine P.M.  At half past nine we came to a very difficult crossing among the loose ice, which, however, we were encouraged to attempt by seeing a floe of some magnitude beyond it.  We had to convey the sledges and provisions one way, and to haul the boats over by another.  One of the masses over which the boats came began to roll about while one of them was upon it, giving us reason to apprehend its upsetting, which must have been attended with some very serious consequence:  fortunately, however, it retained its equilibrium long enough to allow us to get the boat past it in safety, not without several of the men falling overboard, in consequence of the long jumps we had to make, and the edges breaking with their weight.

On the morning of the 20th we came to a good deal of ice, which formed a striking contrast with the other, being composed of flat bay-floes, not three feet thick, which would have afforded us good travelling had they not recently been broken into small pieces, obliging us to launch frequently from one to another.  These floes had been the product of the last winter only, having probably been formed in some of the interstices left between the larger bodies; and, from what we saw of them, there could be little doubt of their being all dissolved before the next autumnal frost.  We halted at seven A.M., having, by our reckoning, accomplished six miles and a half in a N.N.W. direction, the distance traversed being ten miles and a half.  It may therefore be imagined how great was our mortification in finding that our latitude, by observation at noon, was only 82 deg. 36’ 52”, being less than five miles to the northward of our place at noon on the 17th, since which time we had certainly travelled twelve in that direction.