LES MERS GLACIALES. 
201 
ice, though we were still a good hundred miles distant 
from the American shore. Although at any other time 
the terrible climate we had dived into would have been 
very depressing, under present circumstances I think 
the change rather tended to raise our spirits, perhaps 
because the idea of fog and ice in the month of June 
seemed so completely to uncockneyfy us. At all events 
there was no doubt now we had got into les mers 
glaciates , as our French friends called them, and— 
whatever else might be in store for us, there was sure 
henceforth to be no lack of novelty and excitement. 
By this time it was already well on in the evening, 
so—having agreed with Monsieur de la Ronciere on 
a code of signals in case of fogs, and that a jack 
hoisted at the mizen of the “ Reine Hortense /’ or at 
the fore of the schooner, should be an intimation of 
a desire of one or other to cast off,—we got into the 
boat and were dropped down alongside our own ship. 
Ever since leaving Iceland the steamer had been heading 
east-north-east by compass, but during the whole of 
the ensuing night she shaped a south-east course; 
the thick mist rendering it unwise to stand on any 
longer in the direction of the banquise , as they call the 
