104 THE SHIP DRIVES WITHOUT 



1S24. way should we take the ground. At eight the 

 Sept. fQj,g trysail gaiF went in the slings, but we 

 were unable to lower it, on account of the 

 amazing force of the wind, and every rope 

 being encrusted with a thick coating of ice. 

 The decks were now so deeply covered with 

 frozen snow and freezing sea-water, that it was 

 scarcely possible, while we lay over so much, 

 to stand on them ; and all hands being wet 

 and half frozen, without having had any re- 

 freshment for so many hours, our situation was 

 rendered miserable in the extreme. 



Standing wdth our head to the north-east, 

 w^e deepened the water, bat increased the sea 

 and wind, which latter w^as alone of sufficient 

 strength to stave the larboard waist boat 

 against the side of the ship, and also to damage 

 that on the quarter by the same means. 



At eleven A.M. a wave filled and swept away 

 the starboard waist boat, from which most pro- 

 videntially the lead's man had just been called, 

 wdth her davits and the swinging boom. At 

 noon a dim meridian altitude was obtained, and 

 at two P.M. we observed Southampton Island 

 from N.N.E. to E.b.s., very indistinctly, and dis- 

 tant eighteen or twenty miles, but could see 

 nothing of the coast we had left, as it was still 

 covered by dark clouds and snow-storms. 



