98 DRIVEN ASHORE BY THE ICE. 



comfortable rather than dangerous, as there was al- 

 ways help at hand. 



The schooner was, for a time, in rather an alarming 

 situation, and there were many doubts as to whether 

 we should get her off; but not even the consciousness 

 of this circumstance, nor the repeated plunges into 

 the water by the giving way and tilting of the ice, 

 could destroy the inexhaustible fund of good-humor 

 of the ship's company. From this happy disj)osition 

 I must, however, except two individuals, who were 

 always apt to be possessed of a sort of ludicrous grav- 

 ity when there was least occasion for it, and, as is 

 usual with such persons, they were not very service- 

 ably employed. One of them, with great seriousness 

 and an immense amount of misdirected energy, com- 

 menced chopping into my best nine-inch hawser, that 

 was in nobody's way ; and the other, with equal so- 

 lemnity, began vigorously to break up my oars in 

 pushing off pieces of ice which were doing nobody 

 any harm. He even tried to push the schooner off 

 the rocks, alone and unaided, with the tide-pole, an in- 

 strument which had cost McCormick two days to man- 

 ufacture. Of course, the instrument was broken ; but 

 the poor man was saved from the sailing-master's just 

 indignation by following the fragments into the sea, 

 where he was consoled, in the place of prompt assist- 

 ance, with assurances that if he did not make haste 

 the shrimps would be after him, and leave nothing of 

 him but a skeleton for the Commander's collection. 

 The temperature was not below zero, and no worse 

 results followed our exposure than a slight pleurisy 

 to the mate and a few twitches of rheumatism to the 

 destroyer of my oars. 



Our efforts were, however, finally rewarded with 



