The Zoologist— April, 1871. 2543 



all sail set, in company with two other vessels, on a N.N.W. course. 

 The ice soon got firmer, thicker and heavier, and we shortly stuck 

 fast. 'Overboard with you ! gaffs and pokers !' sung out the cap- 

 tain ; and over went, accordingly, the major part of the crew to the 

 ice. The pokers were large poles of light wood, six or eight inches 

 in circumference, and twelve or fifteen feet long : pounding with 

 these, or hewing the ice with axes, the men would split the pans 

 near the bows of the vessel, and then, inserting the ends of the 

 pokers, use them as large levers, lifting up one side of the broken 

 piece and depressing the other, and several getting round with 

 their gaffs, they shoved it by main force under the adjoining ice. 

 Smashing, breaking and pounding the smaller pieces in the course 

 the vessel wished to take, room was afforded for the motion of the 

 larger pans. Laying out great claws on the ice ahead, when the 

 wind was light the crew warped the vessel on. If a large and 

 strong pan was met with, the ice-saw was got out. Sometimes 

 a crowd of men clinging round the ship's bows, and holding on to 

 the bights of ropes suspended there for the purpose, would jump 

 and dance on the ice, bending and breaking it with their weight, 

 shoving it below the vessel, and dragging her on over it with all 

 their force. Up to their knees in water, as one piece after another 

 sank below the cutwater, they still held on, hurraing at every fresh 

 start she made, dancing, jumping, pushing, shoving, hauling, hewing, 

 sawing, till every soul on board was roused into excited exertion. 

 After looking on some time I could stand it no longer; so, seizing 

 a gaff, I jumped overboard, but soon got a damper, as, in my first 

 essay to cross before the vessel, I did not distinguish the sound 

 pieces from the mere broken mash and lolly, and in I went to my 

 middle before I was aware of it. One of the men caught hold of 

 me, and I scrambled up the side of the vessel, a little cooler than 

 I went down. Every fresh hand, they said, has to pay his footing 

 for his first dip; so I was obliged not only to lose my footing in 

 water myself, but give it afterwards in rum to the crew. They con- 

 tinued their exertions the whole of the day, relieved occasionally 

 by small open pools of water; and in the evening we calculated 

 that we had made about fifteen miles ! It continued foggy all day, 

 and at night it began to rain. We had seen no vessel since the 

 morning — nothing but a dreary expanse of ice and snow stretching 

 away into the misty horizon." 



Thus they continued day after day, with little variation, and 



