CLOSE QUARTERS WITH ICE 103 



Of course the steam is up at all times, ready, like 

 ourselves, for anything at a moment's notice. When 

 the ice is not so heavy as to be utterly impenetrable, 

 the ship under full steam moves back and forth con- 

 tinually, butting and charging the floes. Sometimes 

 a charge will send the ship forward half her length, 

 sometimes her whole length — sometimes not an inch. 

 When, with all the steam of the boilers, we can make 

 no headway whatever, we wait for the ice to loosen 

 up, and economize our coal. We do not mind using 

 the ship as a battering ram — that is what she was made 

 for; but beyond Etah coal is precious, and every ounce 

 of it must yield its full return of northward steaming. 

 The coal at present in our bunkers was all that we 

 should have until our return the following year, when 

 the Peary Arctic Club would send a ship to meet us 

 at Etah. 



It must be remembered that during all this time 

 we were in the region of constant daylight, in the 

 season of the midnight sun. Sometimes the weather 

 was foggy, sometimes cloudy, sometimes sunny; but 

 there was no darkness. The periods of day and night 

 were measured only by our watches — not, during 

 the passage of these channels, by sleeping and waking, 

 for we slept only in those brief intervals when there 

 was nothing else to do. Unresting vigilance was the 

 price we paid for our passage. 



Bartlett's judgment was reliable, but the cabin 

 had no attraction for me when the ship and the 

 fortunes of the expedition were swaying in the 

 balance. Then, too, when the ship was butting 

 the ice, the shock of the impact would have made 



