For two days past the _Dolphin_ had been sailing with difficulty through
large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues
that interrupted her passage from one lead or canal to another; at other
times boring with difficulty through compact masses of sludge; or
occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large
berg or a field. They were compelled to proceed north, however, in
consequence of the pack having become fixed towards, the south, and thus
rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be
again set in motion. Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of
the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed
southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been
forced into the strait by the late gales would be released, and open up
a passage. Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and
inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of the _Pole Star_ or her
crew.

On the day about which we are writing, the ship was beset by large
fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the
horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices
from the midst of the glaciers that encumber them all the year round.

It was a lovely Arctic day. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and
the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that
one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circumstances,
was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other
sea-birds, which clustered on the neighbouring cliffs and flew overhead
in clouds. All round the pure surfaces of the ice-fields were broken by
the shadows which the hummocks and bergs cast over them, and by the
pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while