353 GREELY'S ARCTIC WINTER OF STARVATION 



extremely difficult for such small craft, and they were frequently 

 impeded by ice which would have offered no obstacle to a big 

 steamer. The adventurers had scarcely got out of sight of the 

 house where they had passed the two long dark winters before they 

 were so beset with loose ice that progress was almost impossible. 

 Then new ice formed round them, and they were hard and fast. 

 The fact that they only carried a limited supply of fuel made their 

 position more serious, and when, on August i8th, a temporary 

 breaking in the floes enabled them to move forward, there was a 

 general rejoicing. But it was soon checked on discovering that they 

 were forced inside of a huge mass of ice over fifty feet high and 

 extending right up to the solid floe. It was impossible to turn back 

 and fight through the drifting ice behind them, and the only hope 

 of escape seemed to be to steam on in case there might be a channel 

 through the floe ahead. 



As they passed along the great wall of ice they were amazed at 

 seeing a crevice run into it. Arriving opposite to it, they found 

 that it was a cleavage which went right through the mass, and they 

 turned into it. The enormous berg had grounded and had split 

 asunder, leaving a passage a hundred yards long and barely twelve 

 feet wide, the sides of which were sheer fifty feet high on either 

 hand. Such a formation was unique, even in the Arctic regions, 

 and the steaming through it was an adventure without a parallel. 



The passage led into fairly open water, and they pushed on 

 until Rawlings Bay was reached. Here the floes closed in on them 

 so quickly that the boats were caught before anything could be done 

 to save them. Hasty efforts were made to lift the lighter boats on 

 the ice and to unload the food supplies from the others. The nip 

 had not been severe enough to injure the boats seriously, but the ice 

 held them captive, and the journey south was now restricted to the 

 slow drift of the floe. By August 26th they had traveled 300 miles 

 from Fort Conger and were within fifty miles of Cape Sabine, a 

 headland where Sir George Nares had left a store of provisions in 



