A. TREMENDOUS PROSPECT. 137 



but as these are not uncommon in ice even in its best 

 state, and the dogs easily leap over them, they are 

 frightful only to strangers. 



" As the wind rose to a storm, the swell had now 

 increased so much that its effects on the ice were 

 extraordinary, and really alarming. The sledges, 

 instead of gliding smoothly along as on an even 

 surface, sometimes ran with violence after the dogs, 

 and sometimes seemed with difficulty to ascend a 

 rising hill. Noises, too, like the report of cannon, 

 were now distinctly heard in many directions, from 

 the bursting of the ice at a distance. Alarmed by 

 these frightful phenomena, our travellers drove with 

 all haste towards the shore ; and, as they approached 

 it, the prospect before them was tremendous. The 

 ice having burst loose from the rocks, was tossed to 

 and fro, and broken in a thousand pieces against the 

 precipices with a dreadful noise which, added to 

 the raging of the sea, the roaring of the wind, and 

 the driving of the snow, so overpowered them as 

 almost completely to deprive them of the use of 

 their eyes and ears. 



" To make the land was now the only resource that 

 remained, but it was with the utmost difficulty that 

 the frightened dogs could be driven forward ; and 

 as the whole body of the ice frequently sank below 

 the summits of the rocks, and then rose above them, 

 the only time for landing was the moment it gained 

 the level of the coast a circumstance which ren- 

 dered the attempt extremely nice and hazardous. 



