OCEAN FISH AND OCEAN FISHING 47 



every variety of height and size, dimly seen in the 

 fog. At breakfast-time the mist cleared com- 

 pletely, rising like a great curtain, and we found 

 ourselves running into what was literally a vast 

 harbour, whose walls were table-topped bergs, 

 many of them thirty miles long. The ship was 

 " hove to," and looking from the foretop-mast- 

 head, the captain with his glasses could see 

 nothing but ice in the far distance, and so deter- 

 mined to go about and make for the north. But 

 the detached ice continued — in one day I counted 

 eight hundred, and then gave up reckoning. 

 Luckily, being the Antarctic midsummer, there 

 was practically no darkness, and there was no 

 fog, but every ten minutes the ship had to alter 

 her course to avoid collision with these ice- 

 mountains, some of which were six hundred feet 

 high. A collision would have meant certain death 

 to all on board, for even if the boats were saved, 

 the nearest land is separated from us by a thousand 

 miles of the most terrible sea in the world. 



January 2\th. — The crew are worn out and are 

 ice-blind from continually watching; but, thank 

 God, to-day, after nearly a fortnight's frightful 

 anxiety, we have seen the last of the ice, and are 



