220 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
severe bumps,—though the loss of a little copper was 
the only damage they entailed,—we made our way back 
to the northern end of the island, where the pack was 
looser, and we had at all events a little more breathing 
room. 
It had become very cold;—so cold, indeed, that 
Mr. Wyse—no longer able to keep a clutch of the 
rigging—had a severe tumble from the yard on which 
he was standing. The wind was freshening, and the 
ice was evidently still in motion; but although very 
anxious to get back again into open water, we thought 
it would not do to go away without landing, even if 
it were only for an hour. So having laid the schooner 
right under the cliff, and putting into the gig our old 
discarded figure-head, a white ensign, a flag-staff, and 
a tin biscuit-box, containing a paper on which I had 
hastily written the schooner’s name, the date of her 
arrival, and the names of all those who sailed on 
board,—we pulled ashore. A ribbon of beach not more 
than fifteen yards wide, composed of iron-sand, augite, 
and pyroxene, running along under the basaltic preci¬ 
pice—upwards of a thousand feet high—which serves as 
a kind of plinth to the mountain, was the only 
