46 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
in diameter, which was without any visible outlet. 
Two other ships were in company, and in the 
same predicament. Finding that we should cer¬ 
tainly he beset, if we did not speedily escape, I 
kept a constant watch on the movements of the 
ice, and had all hands in attendance, for the 
prompt management of the sails, on which, the 
safety of the ship, under Divine Providence, de¬ 
pended. A partial avenue fortunately occurring 
about 11 a. M., we immediately slipped through 
it; hut the ice closing rapidly, and the obstacles 
every moment becoming more formidable, we were 
under the necessity of immediately forcing into 
another barrier that opposed us; and after drift¬ 
ing or boring, by a pressure of canvas, for two or 
three hours, we at length obtained sailing room. 
We persevered to the eastward, tacking occasion¬ 
ally, until 6 P. m., when falling into a commo¬ 
dious opening of the ice, we laid the ship to. In 
effecting our escape from the place where we were 
hemmed in by the ice, I was obliged to be many 
horns at the mast-head. At one spell I remain¬ 
ed about four hours, when the temperature was 
three degrees below zero. 
The nautical operations of this day were of the 
most difficult kind which the whale-fishers have 
to encounter, and in which numbers of ships are 
annually damaged. Most of the masses of drift- 
