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 nijDped between 

 the fields which were rapidlj^ 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-yard ; 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 v.'ith the wreck 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 days 

 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 again 

 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 



