A T T E M P T TO EMBARK. 
2-5-5 
the boats at once nearly a mile from the water’s edge, 
where a large iceberg was frozen tight in the floes. 
But here we were still pursued. All the next night 
it blew fearfully, and at last our berg crashed away 
through the broken ice, and our asylum was destroyed. 
Again we fell to hauling back the boats; until, fearing 
that the continuance of the gale might induce a 
ground-swell, which would have been fatal to us, I 
came to a halt near the slope of a low iceberg, on 
which I felt confident that we could haul up in case 
of the entire disruption of the floes. The entire area 
was already intersected with long cracks, and the sur- 
fiice began to show a perceptible undulation beneath 
our feet. 
It was well for us 1 had not gratified the men by 
taking the outside track: we should certainly have 
been rafted off into the storm, and without an appa¬ 
rent possibility of escape. 
I climbed to the summit of the berg; but it was im¬ 
possible to penetrate the obscurity of mist and spray 
and cloud farther than a thousand yards. The sea 
tore the ice up almost to the very base of the berg, and 
all around it looked like one vast tumultuous caldron, 
the ice-tables crashing together in every possible posi¬ 
tion with deafening clamor. 
KNIFE. 
