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hundred and fifty yards of coloured flannel, one hundred pounds of snuff, one hundred and fifty pounds of
soap, forty umbrellas, and much gin and brandy. The expedition left on 18th April 1818, and "I believe," says
Ross, "there was not a man who did not indulge after the fashion of a sailor in feeling that its issue was placed
in His hands whose power is most visible in the Great Deep."
Before June had set in, the two ships were ploughing their way up the west coast of Greenland in heavy
snowstorms. They sailed through Davis Strait, past the island of Disco into Baffin's undefined bay. Icebergs
stood high out of the water on all sides, and navigation was very dangerous. Towards the end of July a bay to
which Ross gave the name of Melville Bay, after the first Lord of the Admiralty, was passed. "Very high
mountains of land and ice were seen to the north side of Melville's Bay, forming an impassable barrier, the
precipices next the sea being from one thousand to two thousand feet high."
The ships were sailing slowly past the desolate shores amid these high icebergs when suddenly several natives
appeared on the ice. Now Ross had brought an Eskimo with him named Sacheuse.
"Come on!" cried Sacheuse to the astonished natives.
"No--no--go away!" they cried. "Go away; we can kill you!"
"What great creatures are these?" they asked, pointing to the ships. "Do they come from the sun or the moon?
Do they give us light by night or by day?"
Pointing southwards, Sacheuse told them that the strangers had come from a distant country.
CHAPTER LI 171
"That cannot be; there is nothing but ice there," was the answer.
Soon the Englishmen made friends with these people, whom they called Arctic Highlanders, giving the name
of the Arctic Highlands to all the land in the north-east corner of Baffin's Bay. Passing Cape York, they
followed the almost perpendicular coast, even as Baffin had done. They passed Wolstenholme Sound and
Whale Sound; they saw Smith's Sound, and named the capes on either side Isabella and Alexander after their
two ships. And then Ross gave up all further discovery for the time being in this direction. "Even if it be
imagined that some narrow strait may exist through these mountains, it is evident that it must for ever be
unnavigable," he says decidedly. "Being thus satisfied that there could be no further inducement to continue
longer in this place, I shaped my course for the next opening which appeared in view to the westward." This
was the Sound which was afterwards called "Jones Sound."
"We ran nine miles among very heavy ice, until noon, when, a very thick fog coming on, we were obliged to
take shelter under a large iceberg." Sailing south, but some way from land, a wide opening appeared which
answered exactly to the Lancaster Sound of Baffin. Lieutenant Parry and many of his officers felt sure that
this was a strait communicating with the open sea to westward, and were both astonished and dismayed when
Ross, declaring that he was "perfectly satisfied that there was no passage in this direction," turned back. He
brought his expedition back to England after a seven months' trip. But, though he was certain enough on the
subject, his officers did not agree with him entirely, and the subject of the North-West Passage was still
discussed in geographical circles.
When young Lieutenant Parry, who had commanded the Alexander in Ross' expedition, was consulted, he
pressed for further exploration of the far north. And two expeditions were soon fitted out, one under Parry and
one under Franklin, who had already served with Flinders in Australian exploration. Parry started off first with
instructions to explore Lancaster's Sound; failing to find a passage, to explore Alderman Jones Sound, failing
this again, Sir Thomas Smith's Sound. If he succeeded in getting through to the Behring Strait, he was to go to
Kamtchatka and on to the Sandwich Islands. "You are to understand," ran the instructions, "that the finding of
a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is the main object of this expedition."
On board the Hecla, a ship of three hundred and seventy-five tons, with a hundred-and-eighty-ton brig, the
Griper, accompanying, Parry sailed away early in May 1819. The first week in July found him crossing the
Arctic Circle amid immense icebergs against which a heavy southerly swell was violently agitated, "dashing
the loose ice with tremendous force, sometimes raising a white spray over them to the height of more than a
hundred feet, accompanied with a loud noise exactly resembling the roar of distant thunder."
The entrance to Lancaster Sound was reached on 31st July, and, says Parry: "It is more easy to imagine than
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