TYPES OF SAILORS. 199 



was agreeable to port, nor was it until one mass of ponderous dimensions burst from 

 its imprisonment below that she altogether regained her upright position. On be- 

 holding the walls of ice on either side between which she had been nipped, I was 

 astonished at the tremendous force she had sustained." Her mould was stamped as per- 

 fectly as in a die. Astonishment, however, soon yielded to a more grateful feeling, an 

 admiration of the genius and mechanical skill by which the Terror had been so ably 

 prepared for this service. There were many old Greenland seamen on board, and they 

 were unanimously of opinion that no ship they had ever seen could have resisted such 

 a pressure. On sounding the well she was found not to leak, though the carpenters 

 had employment enough in caulking the seams on deck. 



They had now been a month beset, and were about to attempt the cutting of a dock 

 in the ice round the ship, when there was a general commotion, and the entire body by 

 which they were hampered separated into single pieces, tossing into heaps, and grinding- 

 to powder whatever interrupted its course. The ship bore well up against this hurly- 

 burly, but the situation was not improved. For several days the Terror was in a helpless 

 condition, her stern raised seven and a half feet above its proper position, and her bows 

 correspondingly depressed, by the pressure of huge ice-masses. Her deck was in con- 

 sequence a slippery and dangerous inclined plane. 



On October 1st the vessel gradually righted, and the men were kept employed 

 in building snow-walls round the ship, and in the erection of an observatory on the 

 floe. ' ' Meantime," says Back, " we were not unobservant of the habits and dispositions 

 of the crew, hastily gathered together, and for the most part composed of people who 

 had never before been out of a collier. Some half a dozen, indeed, had "served in 

 Greenland vessels, but the laxity which is there permitted rendered them little better 

 than the former. A few men-of-wars-men who were also on board were worth the 

 whole put together. The want of discipline and of attention to personal comfort was 

 most conspicuous ; and though the wholesome regulations practised in His Majesty's 

 service were most rigidly attended to in the Terror, yet such was the un sociability, 

 though without any ill-will, that it was only by a steady and undeviating system 

 pursued by the first lieutenant that they were brought at all together with the feeling 

 of messmates. At first, though nominally in the same mess, and eating at the same 

 table, many of them would secrete their allowance, with other unmanly and unsailor- 

 like practices. This was another proof added to the many I had already witnessed, how 

 greatly discipline improves the mind and manners, and how much the regular service men 

 are to be preferred for all hazardous or difficult enterprises. Reciprocity of kindnesses, a 

 generous and self-denying disposition, a spirit of frankness, a hearty and above-board 

 manner these are the true characteristics of the British seaman, and the want of these 

 is seldom compensated by other qualities. In our case and I mention this merely to 

 show the difference of olden and modern times there were only three or four in the ship 

 who could not write. All read, some recited whole pages of poetry, others sang French 

 songs. Yet, with all this, had they been left to themselves I verily believe a more un- 

 sociable, suspicious, and uncomfortable set of people could not have been found. Oh, 

 if the two are incompatible, give me the old Jack Tar, who would stand out for his 



