84 IN THE PACK. 



had to go about again ; or rather, we tried to ; for the 

 schooner, never reliable without her topsail, which we 

 could not carry owing to the accident to the topmast, 

 missed in stays ; and, fearful of being nipped between 

 the fields which were rapidly reducing the open water 

 about us, we wore round ; and, there not being suffi- 

 cient room, we were on the eve of striking with the 

 starboard-bow a solid ice-field a mile in width. There 

 was little hope for the schooner if this collision should 

 happen with our full headway ; and being unable to 

 avoid it, I thought it clearly safest to take the shock 

 squarely on the fore-foot ; so I ordered the helm up, 

 and went at it in true battering-ram style. To me 

 the prospect was doubly disagreeable. For the greater 

 facility of observation I had taken my station on the 

 foretop-yarcl ; and the mast being already sprung and 

 swinging with my weight, I had little other expecta- 

 tion than that, when the shock came, it would snap 

 off and land me with the w r reck on the ice ahead. 

 Luckily for me the spar held firm, but the cut-water 

 flew in splinters with the collision, and the iron sheath- 

 ing was torn from the bows as if it had been brown 

 paper. 



And now came a series of desperate struggles. No 

 topsail-schooner was ever put through such a set of 

 gymnastic feats. I had been so much annoyed by the 

 detentions and embarrassments of the last few davs 

 that I was determined to risk every thing rather than 

 go back. As long as the schooner would float I should 

 hope still to get a clutch on Cape Hatherton. 



Getting clear of the floe, the schooner came aorain 

 to the wind, and, gliding into a narrow lead, we soon 

 emerged into a broad space of open water. Had this 

 continued we should soon have been rewarded with 



