numbers on the pieces of ice that surrounded us. Our people were more
successful than they had been before, returning with three large ones and a
young one; besides killing and wounding several others. The gentlemen who
went on this party were witnesses of several remarkable instances of
parental affection in those animals. On the approach of our boats toward
the ice, they all took their cubs under their fins, and endeavoured to
escape with them into the sea. Several, whose young were killed or wounded,
and left floating on the surface, rose again, and carried them down,
sometimes just as our people were going to take them up into the boat; and
might be traced bearing them to a great distance through the water, which
was coloured with their blood; we afterward observed them bringing them at
times above the surface, as if for air, and again diving under it with a
dreadful bellowing. The female, in particular, whose young had been
destroyed, and taken into the boat, became so enraged, that she attacked
the cutter, and struck her two tusks through the bottom of it.

At eight in the evening, a breeze sprang up to the eastward, with which we
still continued our course to the southward, and at twelve fell in with
numerous large bodies of ice. We endeavoured to push through them with an
easy sail, for fear of damaging the ship; and having got a little farther
to the southward, nothing was to be seen but one compact field of ice,
stretching to the S.W., S.E., and N.E., as far as the eye could reach. This
unexpected and formidable obstacle put an end to Captain Clerke's plan of
visiting the Tschutski; for no space remained open, but back again to the
northward. Accordingly, at three in the morning of the 11th, we tacked, and
stood to that quarter. At noon, the latitude, by observation, was 67° 49',
and longitude 188° 47'.

On the 12th, we had light winds, with thick hazy weather; and on trying the
current, we found it set to the N.W., at the rate of half a knot an hour.