236 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
services manifested a seriousness of deportment, 
and an apparent reverence for the presence of the 
Almighty, seldom exceeded in the best regulated 
and most devotional congregation on shore. 
The weather was intensely foggy the whole of 
the day, which prevented us from perceiving the 
state of the ice around. A number of loose pieces 
set about us, but we were fortunately enabled to 
remain fastened to the floe until midnight, when 
a large sheet of ice was observed to be rapidly ad¬ 
vancing towards us, which was only at the distance 
of fifty or sixty fathoms when it was discovered. 
Within five minutes we had the sails set, and the 
ship under-way. In the mean time, I sent a 
message to the Fame, which lay a little to wind¬ 
ward of us, and not in sight of the place where 
the ice threatened in a few minutes to close her 
in, to warn my Father of the approaching dan¬ 
ger. His habitual promptitude enabled him to 
make his escape, notwithstanding the extreme 
denseness of the fog, though, by this time, there 
was scarcely a ship’s length space between the 
floes *. 
* The liability to the sudden discovery of danger, 
among the whale-fishers, when deeply immersed in the ice 
and bewildered by foggy weather, requires them to be in a 
state of constant preparation, and to apply the most prompt 
