74 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. III. 



dashed into the " unbroken line of furious breakers, 

 in which immense pieces of ice were heaving and 

 subsiding with the waves, and dashing together 

 with a violence which nothing apparently but a 

 solid body could withstand, occasioning such a noise 

 that it was with the greatest difficulty we could make 

 our orders heard by the crew." " No language," 

 he says, " I am convinced, can convey an adequate 

 idea of the terrific grandeur of the effect now pro- 

 duced by the collision of the ice and the tem- 

 pestuous ocean," 



But when the moment arrived that the strength 

 of the little bark was to be placed in competition 

 with that of the great icy continent, and doubts 

 might reasonably have arisen of her surviving the 

 unequal conflict, the crew preserved the greatest 

 calmness and resolution. Captain Beechey says : 



" If ever the fortitude of seamen was fairly tried, it was 

 assuredly not less so on this occasion ; and I will not conceal 

 the pride I felt in witnessing the bold and decisive tone in 

 which the orders were issued by the commander of our little 

 vessel (Franklin), and the promptitude and steadiness with 

 which they were executed by the crew. Each person in- 

 stinctively secured his own hold, and with his eyes fixed 

 upon the masts, awaited in breathless anxiety the moment 

 of concussion. It soon arrived— the brig, cutting her way 

 through the light ice, came in violent contact with the main 

 body. In an instant we all lost our footing, the masts bent 

 with the impetus, and the cracking timbers from below be- 

 spoke a pressure which was calculated to awaken our serious 

 apprehensions." — pp. 123, 124. 



Captain Beechey proceeds to give a most formid- 



