ICE DRIFTING. 
173 
"After floating down, warping, to avoid the loose 
ice, we finally cast off in comparatiyely open water, 
and began beating toward Cape Spencer to get round 
the field. Once there, we got along finely, sinking the 
eastern shore by degrees, and nearing the undelineated 
coasts of Cornwallis Island. White whales, narwhals, 
seals — among them the Phoca leonina with his puffed 
cheeks — and two bears, were seen. 
" The ice is tremendous, far ahead of any thing we 
have met with. The thickness of the upraised tables 
is sometimes fourteen feet ; and the hummocks are so 
gronnd and distorted by the rude attrition of the floes, 
that they rise up iij. cones like crushed sugar, some of 
them forty feet high. But that the queer life we are 
leading — a life of constant exposure and excitement, 
and one that seems more like the ' roughing it' of a 
land party than the life of shipboard — has inured us 
to the eccentric fancies of the ice, our position would 
be a sleepless one. 
''September 4, 2 A.M. Was awakened by Captain 
De Haven to look at the ice : an impressive sight. We 
were fast with three anchors to the main floe ; and 
now, though the wind was still from the northward, 
and therefore in opposition to the drift, the floating 
masses under the action of the tide came with a west- 
ward trend directly past us. Fortunately, they were 
not borne down upon the vessels ; but, as they went 
by in slow procession to the west, our sensations were^ 
to say the least, sensations. It was very grand to see 
up-piled blocks twenty feet and more above our heads, 
and to wonder whether this fellow would strike oui 
main-yard or clear our stern. Some of the moving 
hummocks were thirty feet high. They grazed us ; 
but a little projection of the main field to windward 
shied them off. 
