quite free from snow as high as he ascended it: and the following
fact seems to render it probable that no great quantity either of
snow or sleet had fallen here since our last visit. Mr. Fisher had
not proceeded far, till, to his great surprise, he encountered the
tracks of human feet upon the banks of the stream, which appeared
so fresh that he at first imagined them to have been recently made
by some natives, but which, on examination, were distinctly
ascertained to be the marks of our own shoes, made eleven months
before.




CHAPTER II.

Entrance into Sir James Lancaster's Sound of
Baffin.--Uninterrupted Passage to the Westward.--Discovery and
Examination of Prince Regent's Inlet.--Progress to the Southward
stopped by Ice.--Return to the Northward.--Pass Barrow's Strait,
and enter the Polar Sea.


We were now about to enter and to explore that great sound or
inlet which has obtained a degree of celebrity beyond what it
might otherwise have been considered to possess, from the very
opposite opinions which have been held with regard to it. To us it
was peculiarly interesting, as being the point to which our
instructions more particularly directed our attention; and I may
add, what I believe we all felt, it was that point of the voyage
which was to determine the success or failure of the expedition,