CHARLES WILKES 
233 
her movements. The rudder had been brought on board 
with difficulty and the carpenters were at work on it 
trying to repair it sufficiently to allow it to be shipped; 
Mr. Dibble, the carpenter, was on the sick-list, but he 
rose from his bed and toiled with his mates for four and 
twenty hours without intermission to accomplish the 
herculean task. On the 25th the rudder was hung, though 
in a very unsatisfactory state, and the ship was at last 
worked out of the bay in the barrier in which she had so 
nearly perished. She was in a deplorable condition. In 
addition to the other damage, her stem was nearly 
ground off by collisions with the ice. It would have 
been madness to attempt more, and the only chance of 
safety lay in an immediate retreat to the north by which, 
if the elements were kind, she might reach Sydney. On 
February 21st she arrived at that port with all well on 
board, after a tempestuous and most anxious voyage. 
Captain Hudson had shown himself a splendid sailor, 
cool, resourceful, and never at a loss how to act in the 
most trying emergencies ; and Wilkes gives him un- 
stinted praise for his seamanship, courage, and devotion. 
The Vincennes and Porpoise were left cruising west- 
ward along the icy barrier. On January 22, 1840, the 
Vincennes passed the place where the Peacock unfortu- 
nately found an opening on the following day, and no 
break in the line of the barrier was observed. The alter- 
nate opening and closing of the ice was attributed by 
Wilkes to a tide setting along the coast of the Antarctic 
continent. On the 22nd the sea was found clear to the 
south and the Vincennes sailed into a wide bay, situated 
in 67° 4' S. and 147 0 30' E., hoping this time to reach the 
land, but at midnight it appeared that there was no out- 
let to east or west, and a solid ice-barrier formed the 
