THE RETREAT. 223 
ments. I do not think, often as I have gone up on 
deck from a close cabin in a gale at sea, that I was 
ever more struck with the extreme noise and tumult 
of a storm. 
Once more snowed up,—for the drift built its crystal 
palace rapidly about us,—we remained cramped and 
seething till our appetites reminded ns of the neces- 
ICE-BELT BROKEN BY FALLING ROCK. 
sities of the inner man. To breast the gale was 
simply impossible; the alternative was to drive before 
it to the north and east. Forty miles of floundering 
travel brought us in twenty hours to the party on the 
floes. 
They too had felt the force of the storm, and had 
drawn up the boats with their prows to the wind, all 
hands housed, and wondering as much as we did that 
the ice still held. 
