UP WELLINGTON CHANNEL. 
193 
and the stationary fields, making a quick, liberating 
jump above them that rattled the movables fore and 
aft. As it wore on toward morning, the ice, now ten 
inches thick, kept crowding upon us with increased 
energy ; and the w^hole of the 17th was passed in a 
succession of conflicts with it. 
The 18th began with a nipping that promised more 
of danger. The banks of ice rose one above another 
till they reached the line of our bulwarks. This, too, 
continued through the day, sometimes lulling for a 
while into comparative repose, but recurring after a 
few minutes of partial intermission. While I was 
watching this angry contest of the ice-tables, as they 
clashed together in the darkness of early dawn, I saw 
for the first time the luminous appearance, which has 
been described by voyagers as attending the collision 
of bergs. It was very marked ; as decided a phos- 
phorescence as that of the fire-fly, or the fox-fire of the 
Virginia meadows. 
Still, amid all the tumult, our drift was toward the 
north. From the bearings of the coast, badly obtained 
through the fogs, it was quite evident that we had 
passed beyond any thing recorded on the charts. Cape 
Bowden, Parry's furthest headland, was at least twen- 
ty-five miles south of us ; and our old landmarks. Cape 
Hotham and Beechy, had entirely disappeared. Even 
the high bluffs of Barlow's Inlet had gone. I hardly 
know why it was so, but this inlet had some how or 
other been for me an object of special aversion : the 
naked desolation of its frost-bitten limestone, the cav- 
ernous recess of its cliffs, the cheerlessness of its dark 
shadows, had connected it, from the first day I saw it, 
with some dimly-remembered feeling of pain. But 
how glad we shonld all of us have been, as we floated 
N 
