36 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
full plumage until five years of age, and live very 
long. 
The difficulties, which we expected to 
keeping our course, accumu- 
lated as the ice became more compact and the 
pieces much larger; the face of the ocean being 
often totally excluded from our sight by the im- 
mense bodies floating on its surface. I could not 
help beholding with wonder and delight, the move- 
ments of the ship through them ; it now being 
deemed necessary to have recourse to boring the 
ice, that is, forcing a passage through large bodies 
of it. The address requisite was very interesting ; 
and nothing but the most skilful seamanship, and 
prompt obedience of the ship to the movements of 
the helm, could effect what came under my obser- 
vation. I went to the bows to observe the tactics 
employed in facing the enemy, and was much gra- 
tified by the judicious mode of attack. To meet 
an immense surface of ice, perhaps fifty times the 
ship’s superior in weight, in hasty advance or in 
front, would be ineffectual ; therefore, on approach- 
ing it, the rapid movement of the ship was pro- 
gressively checked, until the bow was introduced 
between two of the pieces, and at the instant of 
contact, the whole power of the sails was applied 
to force aside the obstruction. During the day we 
passed several fragments of ice-bergs^, that probably 
had been the growth of ages, and were of the richest 
* Insulated mountains of ice. 
i 
