217 



CHAPTER V. 



Valentines Day. — Floe damaged. — Outline of Coast*-** 

 Alarming Symptoms. — Chaotic Commotion. — Tumult 

 ceases. — Clearing Deck. — Dovekie shot. — Awful Peril. 



— Grandeur of Scene. — Expectation of Crisis. — Havoc 

 spreads. — Desolation. — Ship remains nipped. — Turmoil. 



— Set of Ice. — Ship rights. — Ice Hills. — Dolts, fyc. 

 loosened by Pressure of Ice. — Flight of Birds. — Nautical 

 Artists. — Divine Service. — Blows a Gale. — Imminent 

 Peril. — St. Patrick's Day. — Ice fluctuates — Sir J. Gor- 

 dons Bay. — Peril of Two Sailors. — Flock of Ducks, 

 and White Bear. — Death of a Sailor. — Baffin's Obser- 

 vations. — Flocks of Loons. — Improvement in Crew's 



* Health. — Diminution of Snow. — Mr. Gore Snow-blind. 



The 14th February, Valentine's day ! By uni- 

 versal consent in the temperate regions of 

 Europe, the harbinger of spring, the day when 

 hope revives and the future begins to triumph 

 over the past ! Even with us, fast locked in the 

 dreary wilderness of ice, amidst driving sleet and 

 fog, the time was not without its influence, and 

 I mark this day as the boundary from which we 

 began to look forward to our final release. " How 

 short the past, how long the future appears," is 

 the trite and universal reflection ; yet in my case 

 the reality was exactly the reverse. When I 

 looked back upon the past, (and it was the first 

 time that I remember to have experienced such 



