DANGER AVERTED. 
125 
men proceed to flence and bring in their valuable 
booty. 
The cold northern wind at length arrives and the ice 
begins to slack off perceptibly ; up to this time it had 
been twisting about in a curious way, although seem¬ 
ingly jammed closely and compactly together. The 
motion is now more clearly defined—now it threatens 
us with a squeeze, but we manage to give the mass a 
different direction, pushing it on one side, and com¬ 
pelling it to vent its force upon its icy neighbour. We 
get the warps and ice anchors out, make sail, and with 
a boat all ready to take the men from hummock to 
hummock, we commence the arduous task of “ boring 
out/' After a few hours we get into a stream running 
to the southward, the ice also slacking off, and also 
trending in the same direction. 
The 11th of June we speed on our way, keeping a 
sharp look out for the point ends as we coast; the ice 
yields but little game, one seal only falling to our 
gun, and we pushed on some forty miles to the north¬ 
wards without any further gain worthy of notice. 
There we saw a steamer far in the pack, and near 
her the ice is covered with seals; thousands and 
thousands of these animals recline upon the ice in 
long lines, and every block of ice in sight appeared 
quite blackened by the numbers upon them. These 
