AMONG THE BERGS, MELVILLE BAY. 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
I RETtrRN from this long digression to my narrative. 
In the night of the 15th of July a mist cleared away 
that had inclosed us for some days, and the atmosphere 
had the pellucid clearness of the Tropics after a rain. 
We then saw how completely surrounded we were by 
bergs. "We had made fast, on the shore side, to one 
of magisterial proportions, that had anchored itself in 
the floe. As we looked coastward, others still closer 
in were so piled up against the land that it was im- 
possible to separate them: a jagged wall of ice con- 
trasting with the hills beyond was all that could be 
seen. To seaward, I counted seventy-three within the 
visual angle. 
As the tide ebbed, the same phenomena of drift which 
had startled us last year in Melville Bay were renew- 
ed. The floes were choked in around us, so as to pre- 
vent the possibility of warping from our position ; and 
