DRIFT    TO    THE    NORTHWARD.          443
ty-five miles south of us; and our old landmarks, Cape Hotham and Beechy, had entirely disappeared. Even the high bluffs of Barlow's Inlet had gone. I hardly know why it was so, but this inlet had some how or other been for me an object of special aversion: the naked desolation of its frostbitten limestone, the cavernous recess of its cliffs, the cheerlessness of its dark shadows, had connected it, from the first day I saw it, with some dimly-remembered feeling of pain. But how glad we should all of us have been, as we floated along in hopeless isolation, to find a way open to its grim but protecting barriers.
" September 20. I have been keeping the first watch, and anxiously observing the ice; for I am no sailor, and in emergency can only wake my comrades. The darkness is complete.
" We are now, poor devils! drifting northward again. Creatures of habit, those who were anxious have forgotten anxiety: glued fast here in a moving mass, we eat, and drink, and sleep, unmindful of the morrow. . It is almost beyond a doubt' that, if we find our way through the contingencies of this Arctic autumn, we must spend our winter in open sea. Many miles to the south, Captain Back passed a memorable term of vigil and exposure. Here, however, I do not anticipate such encounters with drifting floes as are spoken of in Hudson's Bay. The centre of greatest cold is too near us and the communication with open sea too distant.
"I was in the act of writing the above, when a startling sensation, resembling the spring of a well-drawn bow, announced a fresh movement. Running on deck, I found it blowing a furious gale, and the ice again in motion.   I use the word motion inaccurately.   The