146 LEISTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. [IX. 



on these floating islands, followed the ship with a stupid and 

 puzzled look. We were forcibly struck with the contrast 

 between the fictitious world in which we lived on board the 

 ship, and the terrible realities of nature that surrounded us. 

 Lounging in an elegant saloon, at the corner of a clear and 

 sparkling fire, amidst a thousand objects of the arts and 

 luxuries of home, we might have believed that we had not 

 changed our residence, or our habits, or our enjoyments. 

 One of Strauss's waltzes, or Schubert's melodies — played on 



4 



the piano by the band-master — completed the illusion ; and 

 yet we had only to rub off the thin incrustation of frozen 

 vapour that covered the panes of the windows, to look out 

 upon the gigantic and terrible forms of the icebergs dashed 

 against each other by a black and broken sea, and the 

 whole panorama of Polar nature, its awful risks, and its 

 sinister splendours. 



% * * * # 



Meanwhile, we progressed but very slowly. On the ioth 

 of July we were still far from the meridian of Jan Mayen, 

 when we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a fog, and 

 at the bottom of one of the bays formed by the field ice. 

 We tacked immediately, and put the ship about, but the 

 wind had accumulated the ice behind us. At a distance the 

 circle that enclosed us seemed compact and without egress. 

 We considered this as the most critical moment of our 

 expedition. Having tried this icy barrier at several points, 

 we found a narrow and tortuous channel, into which we 

 ventured ; and it was not till after an hour of anxieties that 

 we got a view of the open sea, and of a passage into it. 

 From this moment we were able to coast along the Banquise 

 without interruption. 



On the nth of July at 6 a.m. we reached, at last, the 

 meridian of Jan Mayen, at about eighteen leagues' 1 distance 

 from the southern part of that island, but we saw the ice-field 



1 I think there must be some mistake here ; when we parted company 

 with the " Reine Hortense," we were still upwards of ioo miles distant 

 from the southern extremity of Jan Mayen. 



