1852.] MEET A WHALER. 57 



wreck of a vessel on the ice was reported from the 

 crow's-nest.* It was then so foggy that we had been 

 groping our way along the floe-edge, in order to prevent 

 the possibility of parting company. On reaching the 

 wreck, which we found to be still suspended with her 

 bow out of water, by her casks and air contained be- 

 tween decks, I caused the vessels to be secured to the 

 ice, and commenced saving all the available firewood, of 

 which we were in need. By bits of papers and brands 

 upon her spars we discovered that she was the ' Re- 

 galia,' of Kirkcaldy, and had but recently been aban- 

 doned and set on fire. The hacking of her spars, rig- 

 ging, etc. appear to have been executed by the most 

 malicious feeling of preventing others from making use 

 of them. The fires were still burning, and it was evi- 

 dent that the crew had not long quitted. We some- 

 times laugh at the rapidity with which wreckers destroy 

 and carry off property; but in a very short space of time 

 the masts, yards, rigging, etc. of the late good ship 

 ' Regalia' were absent, and stowed somewhere on board 

 the five vessels, which " had not room for another cask of 

 provision." As the hull, in its present position, might 

 endanger some other vessel, I determined to let her go 

 down, and, at the same time, relieve her of some of the 

 casks and staves within. This, one of our twenty-pound 

 cylinders of gunpowder very effectively accomplished, 

 strewing the surface of the sea with the remnants of 

 casks, staves, etc. At this moment our men were at din- 

 ner ; but the noise of the explosion brought them up, and 



* " Crow's-nest," a look-out place, about the size of a cask, con- 

 structed at the topgallantmast-head, to watfh for whales. 



