NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO SriTZIiEKOEN. 439 



rupted our course. Vie then wared, by tlie way 

 of avoiding it, but soon found, though the weather 

 was thick with snow, that we were completely em- 

 bayed, in a situation that was truly terrific. In the 

 course of fourteen voyages, in which I had before 

 visited this inhospitable country, I passed through 

 many dangers wherein my own life, together wth 

 those of my companions, had been threatened ; but 

 the present case, where our lives seemed to be at 

 stake for a length of time exceeding twelve hours, 

 far surpassed in awfulness, as well as actual hazard, 

 any thing that I had before Avitnessed. Dangers 

 which occur unexpectedly, and terminate suddenly, 

 though of the most awful description, appear like a 

 dream, when they are passed ; but horrors which 

 have a long continuance, though they in some mea- 

 sure decrease in their effect on the mind, by a 

 lengthened contemplation of them, yet they leave 

 an impression on the memory which time itself can- 

 not altogether efface. Such was tlie effect of the 

 present scene. Whilst the wind howled through 

 the rigging vs^ith tempestuous roar, the sea was so 

 mountainous that the mast-heads of some accom- 

 panying ships, within the distance of a quarter of a 

 mile, were intercepted, and rendered invisible by 

 the swells ; and our ship frequently rolled the lee- 

 boats into the water, that were suspended with their 

 keels above the rougldree-raJiX ! At the same time, 

 we were rapidly approaching a body of ice, the 



