A BREAK-UP. 
247 
in small bags to fling on the ice. Every man his 
knapsack an J change of clothing. Arms, hear-knives, 
ammunition out on deck, and sledges loaded. Yet 
this thermometer, at —30°, tells us to stick to the ship 
while we can. 
“ This packing up of one’s carpet-bag in a hurry re- 
quires a mighty discreet memory. I have often won- 
dered that seamen in pushing ofl' from a wreck left so 
many little wants unprovided for; hut I think I un- 
derstand it now. After bestowing away my boots, 
with the rest of a walking wardrobe, in a snugly- 
lashed bundle, I discovered by accident that I had left 
my stockings behind. 
“4 P.M. Brooks comes down while we are dining 
to say we are driving east like a race-horse, and a 
crack ahead : ‘ All hands on deck !’ We had heard 
the grindings last night, and our floe in the morning 
was cut down to a diameter of three hundred yards: 
we had little to spare of it. But the new chasm is 
there, already fifteen feet wide, and about twenty-five 
paces from our bows, stretching across at right angles 
with the old cleft of October the 2d. 
“ Our floe, released from its more bulky portion, seems 
to be making rapidly toward the shore. This, how- 
ever, may be owing to the separated mass having 
an opposite motion, for the darkness is intense. Our 
largest snow-house is carried away ; the disconsolate 
little cupola, with its flag of red bunting, should it sur- 
vive the winter, may puzzle conjectures for our En- 
glish brethren. 
“ Mr. Griffin and myself walked through the gloom 
to the seat of hummock action abeam of the Rescue. 
A dark, hard walk : no changes. The crack, noticed 
some time ago as parallel to and alongside of the Res- 
