AMtiNO T«S EBBnS, MIvLv1LI.B BAV 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
I RETURN from this long digression to my narrative. 
Iir the night of the 15th of July a mist cleared away 
that had inclosed u.s for some days, and the atmosphere 
had the pellucid clearness of the Ti'opics 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 Avith the hills beyond was all that could he 
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 
