344 WHALE-FISHERV. 



Earl Percy struck one also. Things were in this 

 state, when I arrived in the same situation, with the 

 Esk. My harpooners, happily as it proved, did not 

 succeed in any measure. The sea was as smootli as 

 the surface of a pond ; but the ice, I observed, was 

 in a strange state of disturbance. Some floes, and 

 some large pieces, moved with a velocity of three 

 or four miles per hour, while other similar masses 

 were at rest. Some sheets of ice, though quite de- 

 tached from the main body, moved tov.ards the 

 south, as it were by magic, and with such a degree 

 of rapidity, that they left traces in the water o^ er 

 which they passetl, resembling the eddies produced 

 by a strong cvu'rent in a shallow river. The John, 

 which, on her first arrival in this situation, had na- 

 vigated an open lake some leagues in circumference, 

 was, in the space of a few hours, closely beset. The 

 captain of the Neptune, alarmed by the danger to 

 which his men and boats were exposed, left his ship 

 to the care of his second mate, with 11 or 12 men, 

 and proceeded himself in a boat, making the fifth, 

 to their assistance. In a few minutes, these five 

 boats, together with two belonging to the Earl 

 Percy, were closely fixed in the ice. The ships, 

 meanwhile, were progressively forced to a distance, 

 by the quantity of ice which poured in from the 

 north, and interposed itself between them and the 

 boats. In the course of the following morning, the 

 intervening ice had spread to the width of seven or 



