This discovery showed how utterly useless our labors had been; for in spite of all, even with the wind in our favor, we had been drawn steadily in an opposite direction.

It was evident that there was some current here, stronger than all our strength, which had brought us to this place.
We now determined to land on the ice, and try to cook a portion of our seals.

On approaching it we noticed that there was a current which tended to draw us past the ice in what I supposed to be a southwesterly direction.

This confirmed my worst fears.

But now the labor of landing and building a fire on the ice served to interest us for a time and divert our thoughts.