nearly in the mid-channel, between the coast on our larboard, and the northernmost island on our starboard.  Thus we proceeded till three in the afternoon, when, having passed the island, we had not more than three fathoms and a half of water, and the Resolution, at one time, brought the mud up from the bottom.  More water was not to be found in any part of the channel, for, with the ships and boats, we had tried it from side to side.

I therefore thought it high time to return, especially as the wind was in such a quarter that we must ply back.  But what I dreaded most was the wind increasing, and raising the sea into waves, so as to put the ships in danger of striking.  At this time, a head-land on the west shore, which is distinguished by the name of Bald Head, bore N. by W., one league distant.  The coast beyond it extended as far as N.E. by N., where it seemed to end in a point, behind which the coast of the high land, seen over the islands, stretched itself, and some thought they could trace where it joined.  On the west side of Bald Head, the shore forms a bay, in the bottom of which is a low beach, where we saw a number of huts or habitations of the natives.

Having continued to ply back all night, by day-break the next morning we had got into six fathoms water.  At nine o’clock, being about a league from the west shore, I took two boats, and landed, attended by Mr King, to seek wood and water.  We landed where the coast projects out into a bluff head, composed of perpendicular strata of a rock of a dark-blue colour, mixed with quartz and glimmer.  There joins to the beach a narrow border of land, now covered with long grass, and where we met with some angelica.  Beyond this, the ground rises abruptly.  At the top of this elevation, we found a heath, abounding with a variety of berries; and further on, the country was level, and thinly covered with small spruce-trees, and birch and willows no bigger than broom-stuff.  We observed tracks of deer and foxes on the beach; on which also lay a great quantity of drift-wood, and there was no want of fresh water.  I returned on board, with an intention to bring the ships to an anchor here; but the wind then veering to N.E., which blew rather on this shore, I stretched over to the opposite one, in the expectation of finding wood there also, and anchored at eight o’clock in the evening, under the south end of the northernmost island, so we then supposed it to be; but, next morning, we found it to be a peninsula, united to the continent by a low neck of land, on each side of which the coast forms a bay.  We plied into the southernmost, and about noon anchored in five fathoms water, over a bottom of mud; the point of the peninsula, which obtained the name of Cape Denbigh, bearing N. 68 deg.  W., three miles distant.