ship • and from the number of bergs increasing as they advanced, the C H A P ,
sanguine expectations in which they had indulged gradually dimimshed
These bergs were seen off a point of land to which I gave the name of n™,™
Smyth, in compliment to the officer who accompanied the boat ex- Barge,
pedition, and very deservedly obtained his promotion for that service.
In the course of their run they passed a village, where the inhabitants,
seeing them so near, came out of their yourts, and men, women, children,
and dogs set up a loud hallooing until they were gone. Upon
Cape Smyth there was also a village, the inhabitants of which accosted
them with the same hooting noises as before.
Advancing to the northward with the wind off the land, they saw
the main body of ice about seven miles distant to the westward, and
were much encumbered by the icebergs, which they could only avoid
by repeatedly altering the course. The land from Cape Smyth, which
was about forty-five feet in height, sloped gradually to the northward, and
terminated in a low point which has been named Point Barrow. From
the rapidity with which the boat passed the land, there appears to
have been a current setting to the north-east. The water about half
a mile from the cape was between six and seven fathoms.
Wednesday, 23d Aug. “ Arriving about two a . m . off the low
point, we found it much encumbered with ice, and the current setting
N W.(mag.) between three and four miles an hour. Opening the prospect
on its' eastern side, the view was obstructed by a barrier ofice which
appeared to join with the land. This barrier seemed high; but as there
was much refraction, in this we might possibly have been deceived
The weather assuming a very unsettled appearance in the offing (and
the S. E. breeze dying away), we had every reason to expect the wind
from the westward; and knowing the ice to extend as far south as 71°,
the consequences that would attend such a shift were so evident, that
we judged it prudent not to attempt penetrating any farther, especially
in this advanced state of the season. Accordingly we anchored within
the eighth of a mile of the point, under shelter of an iceberg about
fourteen feet high, and from fifty to sixty feet iu length, that had
oTounded in four fathoms water. On the eastern side of the point there
L s a village, larger than any we had before seen, consisting entirely ot
11 B 2