258 GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
heavy and incessant, as to defy every precaution 
for its exclusion, and to be the means of wetting 
me to the skin three or four different times, I 
letiicd to bed about midnight, leaving the ship 
in charge of the chief-mate. After two hours 
spent in disturbed and unrefreshing rest, my at¬ 
tention was attracted, by observing that the ship 
was twice tacked within five minutes. Alarmed 
by such a mark of entanglement and contracted 
navigation, I instantly jumped up, and slipping 
on a large wrapper, ran upon deck. The moment 
was a most important and critical one ; the ship 
being again involved in the very “ bight” out of 
which I had so recently extricated her, with the 
ice rapidly closing about her on every side. The 
width of the bight when I went below, (included 
between the loose eastern floes and a chain of floes 
to the westward, that was brought up by the shore), 
• was about two miles ; but now it was reduced to a 
quaiter ot that distance. Our position in the 
bight was most unfavourable, being between a 
large floe to the eastward, and a sheet of thin land- 
ice to the westward, which were fast approaching 
each other; and the width already diminished to 
150 yards. More sail was instantly spread,_all 
oiu- seamanship was called into action ; and not¬ 
withstanding the narrowness of the channel and 
leewardly current, the ship was worked with such 
