ANCHORED TO A BERG. 
59 
i 
time for hesitation. I crowded sail and bored into the 
drift, leaving Mr. Sontag and three men upon the ice: 
we did not reclaim them till, after some hours of adven¬ 
ture, we brought up under the lee of a grounded berg. 
I pass without notice our successive efforts to work 
the vessel to seaward through the floes. Each had its 
somewhat varied incidents, but all ended in failure to 
make progress. We found ourselves at the end of the 
day’s struggles close to the same imperfectly-defined 
headland which I have marked on the chart as Cape 
Cornelius Grinnell, yet separated from it by a barrier 
of ice, and with our anchors planted in a berg. 
In one of the attempts which I made with my boat 
to detect some pathway or outlet for the brig, I came 
upon a long rocky ledge, with a sloping terrace on its 
southern face, strangely green with sedges and poppies. 
I had learned to refer these unusual traces of vegeta¬ 
tion to the fertilizing action of the refuse which gathers 
about the habitations of men. Yet I was startled, as l 
walked round its narrow and dreary limits, to find an 
Esquimaux hut, so perfect in its preservation that a 
few hours’ labor would have rendered it habitable. 
There were bones of the walrus, fox, and seal, scattered 
round it in small quantities; a dead dog was found 
close by, with the flesh still on his bones; and, a little 
farther off, a bear-skin garment that retained its fur. 
In fact, for a deserted homestead, the scene had so 
little of the air of desolation about it that it cheered 
my good fellows perceptibly. 
The scenery beyond, upon the main shore, might 
