Account of a voyage to Baffin's Bay (ref: CRD/2/1/1)

This is the title page of an account of a voyage to Baffin’s Bay which left the Orkney Islands on 10th March 1818. The captain was probably William Blyth and the vessel may have been the Brunswick. It is amongst the papers of David Craigie, President of the College 1861-1863, but it is not known who wrote it or how Craigie came to have it. He would have been 25 and newly graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh when the voyage embarked. One possibility is that he was on the ship.

As well as the geography encountered, the account gives details of the local ‘esquimaux’, the natural history and, inevitably, the weather. There is this interesting account of a polar bear’s method of hunting:

‘He will sit for a whole day watching a little aperture in the ice, in expectation of a seal emerging from below, and the instant, the latter protrudes his head, the awaiting clutches of destruction, receive him in the embrace of death;- on the contrary, if (which seldom, or never happens) he misses his prey, through the quick observation and dexterity of the seal, or from deficiency of alertness on his part, his resentment is horrible;- tearing the ice with his paws, he roars tremendously, and taking one of his limbs, in his mouth, he will squeeze it in the convulsive agony of rage till, his murderous tusks are died with blood. He then stalks off snuffling at the snow and growling incessantly, in pursuit of some other prey on which he may prove more successful in the exercise of his talents and dexterity.’

• A larger version of the title page is available here