ANECDOTE. 
251 
Her dolphin-striker struck the ice ahead ; her bows be- 
gan to feel the pressure ; and thus lifted up upon the 
solid tables, we have a temporary respite again. 
" Stores are now put out upon the ice, and we await 
—time. Cape Fellfoot, S. by W. i W. Remarkable 
perpendicular bluff, S.S.E. Cape Hurd, E.N.E. i E., 
by compass ; Cape Hurd, N.W. by W. i W. (true). 
"We are at least fifty miles from Beechy Island and 
Union Bay — about forty-five miles from Leopold Har- 
bor stores. Leopold Harbor, or our more distant En- 
glish friends, about one hundred and twenty miles off", 
are our only places of refuge. We are daily, hourly, 
drifting further from both. It is this nakedness of 
resources, even more than perpetual darkness and 
unendurable cold, that makes our position one of 
bitterness. Drift a little westward; thermometer, 
170." 
My journal does not tell the story ; but it is worth 
noting, as it illustrates the sedative effect of a protract- 
ed succession of hazards. Our brig had just mounted 
the floe, and as we stood on the ice watching her vi- 
bration, it seemed so certain that she must come over 
on her beam-ends, that our old boatswain. Brooks, 
called out to " stand from under." At this moment 
it occurred to one of the officers that the fires had not 
been put out, and that the stores remaining on board 
would be burned by the falling of the stoves. Swing- 
ing himself back to the deck, and rushing below, he 
found two persons in the cabin ; the officer who had 
been relieved from watch-duty a few minutes before, 
quietly seated at the mess-table, and the steward as 
quietly waiting on him. " You are a meal ahead of 
me," he said ; " you didn't think I was going out upon 
the ice without my dinner." 
