but very steep, and not being defended by any island, the approach to it
as a lee-shore, is very dangerous. It runs generally in a pretty strait
line about forty miles, when a wide bay opens, in which lies, towards
the north, an island called _Karngalersiorvik_, where there is said to
be a good harbour for boats. The rocks, of which the mountains are
composed, are of a white grey colour, streaked almost perpendicularly
with veins of black stone, about two feet broad. The intermediate strata
may be about eight times as broad. We had hoped to reach Nachvak in the
morning, by continuing our course through the following night, though
the wind was weak and variable, but in the evening we got into
drift-ice: yet as the shoals were not close together, we worked our way
through them; and stood on with the little wind we had at S.E.

3d. At dawn of day, and being still four miles distant from Nachvak, we
perceived both in the open sea, and all along the shore, that our
passage was completely occupied with floating ice, which drove towards
us, and forced us back. We then endeavoured to find shelter in a bay
bounded by high mountains, but found none, the wind driving the ice
after us into it, and soon filling it. Jonathan frequently cried out
with a plaintive voice: "Alas, alas, we shall soon be without a boat!"
We now hastened to the opposite shore to find some cove or inlet, but
getting more and more entangled among the ice, were at last obliged,
some to land, and haul the boat with ropes round the points, and others
with boat-hooks and spars, to keep her off the rocks. Two or three times
she stuck fast on sunken rocks, but by God's mercy always got off again
without damage. At length we discovered three narrow inlets, the
middlemost forming a bay, being the estuary of a river, which runs
W.S.W. about eight or ten miles up the country, and is called
Nullatartok. Into this we pushed, when shortly after our entrance, the
ice entirely filled up the passage, and we were compelled to retreat to