Captain Buchan sailed from Deptford early in May 1818, and, few obstacles presenting themselves, the island of Spitzbergen was approached on the 26th of that month. Its shores at first present a picture of dreariness and desolation: craggy mountains, with their summits towering above the clouds; deep glens, filled with eternal snows, and stupendous icebergs, are the principal objects which attract attention. The eye, however, soon becomes familiarized to such a scene, and the mind is then filled with admiration of its grandeur and magnificence.
The ships pursued an almost uninterrupted course along the western shore of this island, until they reached Cloven Cliff, its northern boundary, where they found that impenetrable barrier of ice described by Captain Phipps, which has hitherto frustrated every endeavour to reach the Pole. Twice they were led into it by flattering prospects, and each time the floes closed upon them, so that they could neither advance nor recede.
These discouraging circumstances, though they threw a damp upon the most sanguine expectations, served but to redouble the ardour of every officer and man. Finding that the sails alone were insufficient to force a passage, the laborious operation of dragging the ships with ropes and ice-anchors was resorted to; an experiment never before made, and now attempted more with the determination of leaving nothing undone, that might afford the slightest prospect of accomplishing the important enterprise in view, than with any expectation of its succeeding to the desired extent. This fatiguing duty was at first rewarded with some degree of success; but difficulties increased as the vessels proceeded, and at length the compactness of the ice was such, that they became quite immoveable. The first time, they were beset for thirteen days, within two miles of the land, and in such shoal water that the rocks were plainly to be seen in the offing. On the second occasion they penetrated as far as 80° 14' N., and remained among the ice nearly four weeks; sometimes striking against it with a violence that made them rebound, and frequently suffering much from its pressure,
