Other circumstances were also encouraging; the whole
surface of the sea was completely free from ice, no land was seen in the
direction of their course, and no bottom could be reached with one hundred
and seventy fathoms of line, so that "we began," observes Captain Parry,
"to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of
the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of
Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment.
This pleasing prospect was rendered the more flattering, by the sea having,
as we thought, regained the usual oceanic colour, and by a long swell which
was rolling in from the southward and eastward." The first circumstance
that threw a damp over their sanguine expectations, was the discovery of
land a-head; they were however renewed by ascertaining that this was only a
small island: but though the insurmountable obstacle of a land termination
of the sound was thus removed, another appeared in its place; as they
perceived that a floe of ice was stretched from the island to the northern
shore. On the southern shore, however, a large inlet was discovered, ten
leagues broad at its entrance, and as no land could be seen in the line of
its direction, hopes were excited that it might lead to a passage into the
Polar Sea, freer from ice than the one above described.
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