406 
APPENDIX. 
the sea before us. We are obliged to change our course 
to extricate ourselves from the ice that surrounds us. 
This is an evolution requiring on the part of the 
commander, the greatest precision of eye, and a perfect 
knowledge of his ship. The u Heine Hortense” going 
half-speed, with all the officers and the crew on deck, 
glides along between the blocks of ice, some of which she 
seems almost to touch, and the smallest of which would 
sink her instantly if a collision took place. Another 
danger, which it is almost impossible to guard against, 
threatens a vessel in those trying moments. If a 
piece of ice gets under the screw, it will be inevitably 
smashed like glass, and the consequences of such an 
accident might be fatal. 
The little English schooner follows us bravely; 
bounding in our track, and avoiding only by a constant 
watchfulness and incessant attention to the helm the 
icebergs that we have cleared. 
But the difficulties of this navigation are nothing- 
in clear weather, as compared to what they are in 
a fog. Then, notwithstanding the slowness of the 
speed, it requires as much luck as skill to avoid col¬ 
lisions. Thus it happened that after having escaped 
the ice a first time, and having steered E. N. E., we 
found ourselves suddenly, towards two o’clock of that 
same day (the 9th), not further than a quarter of a 
mile from the field ice which the fog had hidden from 
us. Generally speaking, the Banquise that we coasted 
along for three days, and that we traced with the 
greatest care for nearly a hundred leagues, presented 
to us an irregular line of margin, running from 
W. S. W. to E. N. E., and thrusting forward towards 
the south—capes and promontories of various sizes, and 
serrated like the teeth of a saw. Every time that we 
bore up for E. N. E., we soon found ourselves in one of 
the gulfs of ice formed by the indentations of the 
