FROM THE SEPARATION OP THE SHIPS. 67 



fields, floes, and drifts, and also of the prevailing 

 winds. 



As all ice rises out of the water, and from its irregular 

 form offers to the wind an easy object of attack, so it is 

 often drawn from the course of the water-current by a 

 strong air-current, and either hurried onward or retarded 

 in its progress. An easterly and south-easterly wind 

 must drive the ice westward, and press the masses closer 

 than ever ; whilst a westerly and north-westerly wind 

 drives the icy dominion farther eastward, dividing the 

 masses, and thereby rendering the ice-stream more 

 navigable. 



This ice-current, or ice-zone, in the outer part of which 

 the whale-fishers mostly catch their prey, was what we 

 were now about to sail across. That this task was certainly 

 not so easy and simple as many think who have not seen 

 for themselves, we knew from experience in the yacht 

 " Greenland " in 1868. This time our steam power gave 

 us greater hope. If we could only reach the vicinity of 

 land we thought that in the much-talked- of " Land- 

 water " we should at least be able to move with ease, and 

 thereby obtain good results. 



On the 15th of July we reached the ice-line. After a 

 foggy day a light southerly breeze got up, the sails filled, 

 the ship answered the helm once more, and we moved in 

 a north-westerly course between small floes and brashes. 

 A practised ear might now notice a peculiar distant roar, 

 which seemed to come nearer by degrees. It was the sea 

 surging against the still hidden ice. However unwelcome 

 and equivocal this surging might sound to the ears of 

 sailors far from any harbour (and it has a wonderfully 

 paralyzing efl'ect as one approaches), to-day it was 



F 2 



