310 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
meanwhile hauled on board, was fastened to ano¬ 
ther anchor placed for its attachment, whereby 
the motion astern was suspended. On this occa¬ 
sion, we again escaped the nip by only three or 
four feet, and the floes came in contact with un¬ 
abated violence, scarcely a ship's- length ahead. 
J3ut more and more approximating points appear¬ 
ing astern, we dropped the ship the whole length 
of our last hawser, with the hope of avoiding them • 
but it only carried us- clear of the first. We 
were then brought to a stand; for theother hawsers 
and warp, forming a continuous line of 700 yards 
in length, got entangled, and nipped by the floes, 
so that we were under the necessity of slipping tlib 
end and fastening it to the ice. As we had now 
no rope left of sufficient strength with which to 
shift the hawser, our progress would have been sus¬ 
pended, and our previous exertions rendered nuga¬ 
tory, had we not brought into use a small mooring 
chain that was fortunately at hand. Before the 
hawser was again fastened, however, the hook of 
the chain broke, and the ship was entirely adrift. 
But it providentially-happened) that the people 
who were on the ice having!seized upon the end 
of the hawser, were enabled to cast it over an an¬ 
chor that an officer was engaged in setting, at the 
very last moment that could have served for our 
preservation ! r l lie severe strain to which this 
