208 A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEEGEN. 
on to this hidden floor we glide without power to he]p 
our ship. The almost worn-out crew have to pluck up 
energy sufficient to avert our new danger. They 
hasten to remove all the heavy lumber in the fore part 
of the schooner to add weight to her stern; they run 
along the deck and jump in the hope of giving her 
motion; others make strenuous efforts to cut the ice 
asunder beneath her keel. In the midst of the toil, 
which may be rendered futile should we be blocked up 
by fresh accessions of ice, the schooner gently and of her 
own accord slips back into deep water, and we breathe 
again. There is no time lost in trying to get her well 
to windward, as the ice is rapidly getting to the west¬ 
ward, and it will never do to be driven back. For 
three days this struggle is carried on with hardly an 
hour’s respite, and these three days seem an infinity of 
time to us all. The wind, coming up from the south, 
had probably been the cause of all our present trouble, 
as in the previous year there was no difficulty of this 
kind to contend with, and we are again confirmed in 
the oft-repeated opinion, that had we but steam-power 
to assist us, we should have escaped from all the fatigue 
which had now nearly exhausted us. One thing is 
quite certain, these encounters with the ice are as 
nothing when compared with like difficulties in Smith 
Sound. There, in the narrow channels, the currents flow 
