A JAM. 
81 
are stationed at the "braces ; a sort of silence prevails. 
Presently comes down the stentorian voice of our com- 
mander, " Hard-a-starboard," and at the same moment 
the yards yield to the ready haul at the braces. The 
brig turns her nose into a sudden indentation, and 
bangs her quarter against a big lump of " swashing" 
ice. " Steady there !" For half a minute not a sound, 
until a second yell — " Down, down ! hard down !" and 
then we rub, and scrape, and jam, and thrust aside, 
and are thrust aside ; but somehow or other find our- 
^selves in an open canal, losing itself in the distance. 
This is " a lead." 
As we move on, congratulating ourselves — if we 
think about the thing at all — that we are " good" for 
a few hundred yards more, a sudden exclamation, ad- 
dressed to nobody, but sufficiently distinctive, comes 
from the yard-arm (we'll call it " pshaw !"), and, look- 
ing ahead, we see that our " lead" is getting narrower, 
its sides edging toward each other — it is losing its 
straightness. At the same moment comes a complica- 
ted succession of orders : " Helm-a-starboard !" " Port !" 
" Easy !" " So !" " Steadie-ee-ee r « Hard-a-port !" 
" Hard, hard, hard !" (scrape, scratch, thump !) " Eugh !" 
an anomalous grunt, and we are jammed fast between 
two great ice-fields of unknown extent. The captain 
comes down, and we all go quietly to supper. 
Next come some processes unconnected with the 
sails, our wings. These will explain, after Arctic 
fashion, the terms " heave," and " warp," and " track," 
and " haul," for we are now beset in ice, and what lit- 
tle wind we have is dead ahead. A couple of hands, 
under orders, of course, seize an iron hook or " ice-an- 
chor," of which we have two sizes, one of forty, and 
another of about a hundred pounds. With this they 
F 
