72 
TOWED BY A BERG. 
upon our decks. Our stanch little brig bore herself 
through all this wild adventure as if she had a 
charmed life. 
“ But a new enemy came in sight ahead. Directly in 
our way, just beyond the line ol floe-ice against which 
we were alternately sliding and thumping, was a group 
of bergs. We had no power to avoid them; and the 
only question was, whether we were to be dashed in 
pieces against them, or whether they might not offer 
us some providential nook of refuge from the storm. 
But, as we neared them, we perceived that they were 
at some distance from the floe-edge, and separated from 
it by an interval of open water. Our hopes rose, as the 
gale drove us toward this passage, and into it; and we 
Avere ready to exult, when, from some unexplained 
cause,—probably an eddy of the wind against the lolty 
ice-walls,—we lost our headway. Almost at the same 
moment, we saw that the bergs were not at rest; that 
with a momentum of their own they were bearing 
down upon the other ice, and that it must be our fate 
to be crushed between the two. 
“Just then, a broad sconce-piece or low water-washed 
berg came driving up from the southward. The thought 
flashed upon me of one of our escapes in Melville Bay; 
and as the sconce moved rapidly close alongside us, 
McGary managed to plant an anchor on its slope and 
hold on to it by a whale-line. It was an anxious mo¬ 
ment. Our noble tow-horse, whiter than the pale horse 
that seemed to be pursuing us, hauled us bravely on; 
the spray dashing over his windward flanks, and his 
