318 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBEEGEN. 
provisions one way, and to haul the boats over by 
another. One of the masses over which the boats 
came, began to roll about while one of them was 
upon it, giving us reason to apprehend its upsetting, 
which must have been attended with some very 
serious consequence; fortunately, however, it retained 
its equilibrium long enough to allow us to get the 
boat past it in safety, though not without several 
of the men falling overboard in consequence of the 
long jumps we had to make, and the edges breaking 
with their weight. Towards midnight we had some 
smart showers of rain, with dry clear intervals between 
them, just as on an April day in England. This kind 
of weather, which continued for several hours, harassed 
the men very much, as it was too warm for working 
with their jackets on, and they wetted their shirt¬ 
sleeves when they took them off. I think the blue sky 
between the clouds this night was as transparent, and 
almost of as deep a blue as I ever saw it. We had 
nearly incurred a second disaster in launching one of 
the boats from an awkward-shaped mass, which 
brought her gunwale close to the water, and there 
kept for a quarter of an hour in a very dangerous 
situation, without our being able to move her one way 
or the other, while the loose ice was in motion about 
us at the time. At length, however, we contrived to 
