154 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



Father Neptune is pleased to send us a drop more 

 water, you bet she'll stop there till kingdom come." 



Fortunately rock is a thing which doesn't exist in 

 these waters, and it appears that the action of the ice 

 has in past centuries ground everything into fine sand 

 or mud, so that there was no risk of a hole being 

 stoved in the vessel's side. 



It was impossible to say how much higher the tide 

 might rise, and the only cheerful fact was that it still 

 continued to do so. A boat was lowered, and it was 

 soon found that the ship was aground on a narrow 

 sandbank, in less than one and a half fathoms of 

 water. On either side of the bank lay deep water, 

 and by sounding it turned out that we were only a 

 few yards away from the deep channel leading through 

 the lagoon. 



There was nothing in the nature of a panic amongst 

 members of the crew; men such as these, who daily 

 and hourly carry their lives in their hands upon these 

 treacherous coasts, are too accustomed to look death 

 in the face at close quarters, and therefore do not 

 worry about such a trivial contretemps as grounding 

 on a sandbank. Certain misgivings, however, came 

 uppermost in my mind at the prospect of having to 

 abandon our ship, and trust ourselves to the hand of 

 fate in nothing better than small boats on these fierce 

 Northern waters. 



Meanwhile, the crew were actively engaged in row- 

 ing some distance astern, where they dropped two 

 anchors attached to long cables, by means of which 

 the skipper hoped to pull off the ship by hand if the 



