far as the eye could see, even from [69] the masthead. It took the vessel our eighteen days just four weeks to drift, sail and motor around the curve of the coast 140 miles by our course to Cape York, the northern boundary limit of Melville Bay. It was then the 4th of Septem- ber and we ought to have turned back Perhaps at once and headed for home, since our progress continued to be blocked by ice floes and bergs, and young ice was forming every night to a thickness of a half-inch or more. But we were anxious to accomplish the purpose for which we had undertaken the voyage and relieve the minds of the men who had been watching at Star hour by hour since the first of July for the arrival of a ship to take them home. Turn back beyond Guadaloupe to St. Vincent