378 
A BREAK UP. 
with a great fringe of foam, hardly a quarter of a mile 
ahead. We could now guess our position and its dan¬ 
gers. The ice was breaking up before the storm, and 
it was not certain that even a direct retreat in the 
face of the gale would extricate us. I determined 
to run to the south for Godsend Island. The floes 
were heavy in that direction, and less likely to give 
way in a northerly gale. It was at best a dreary 
venture. 
“ The surf-line kept encroaching on us till we could 
feel the ice undulating under our feet. Very soon it 
began to give way. Lines of hummocks rose before 
us, and we had to run the gauntlet between them as 
they closed. Escaping these, we toiled over the 
crushed fragments that lay between them and the 
shore, stumbling over the projecting crags, or sinking 
in the water that rose among them. It was too dark 
to see the island which we w r ere steering for; but the 
black loom of a lofty cape broke the line of the horizon 
and served as a landmark. The dogs, relieved from 
the burden of carrying us, moved with more spirit. 
We began to draw near the shore, the ice-storm still 
raging behind us. But our difficulties were only reach¬ 
ing their climax. We knew as icemen that the access 
to the land-ice from the floe was, under the most favor¬ 
ing circumstances, both toilsome and dangerous. The 
rise and fall of the tides always breaks up the ice at 
the margin of the ice-belt in a tangle of irregular, half- 
floating masses; and these were now surging under 
the energies of the gale. It was pitchy dark. I per- 
