“I was in the act of writing the above, when a startling sensation, resembling the spring of a well-drawn bow, announced a fresh movement. Running on deck, I found it blowing a furious gale, and the ice again in motion. I use the word motion inaccurately. The field, of which we are a part, is always in motion; that is, drifting with wind or current. It is only when other ice bears down upon our own, or our own ice is borne in against other floes, that pressure and resistance make us conscious of motion.
“The ice was again in motion. The great expanse of recently-formed solidity, already bristling with hummocks, had up to this moment resisted the enormous incidence of a heavy gale. Suddenly, however, the pressure increasing beyond its strength, it yielded. The twang of a bow-string is the only thing I can compare it to. In a single instant the broad field was rent asunder, cracked in every conceivable direction, tables ground against tables, and masses piled over masses. The sea seemed to be churning ice.
“By the time I had yoked my neck in its serape, and got up upon deck, the ice had piled up a couple of feet above our bulwarks. In less than another minute it had toppled over again, and we were floating helplessly in a confused mass of broken fragments. Fortunately the Rescue remained fixed; our hawser was fast to her stern, and by it we were brought side by side again. Night passed anxiously; i. e., slept in my clothes, and dreamed of being presented to Queen Victoria.
“September 21, Saturday. We have drifted still more to the northward and eastward. An observation gave us latitude 75° 20′ 38″ N. We are apparently not more than seven miles from the shore. It is still of the characteristic transition limestone, very uninviting, snow-covered, and destitute; but we look at it longingly. It would be so comforting to have landed a small depôt of provisions, in case of accident or impaction further north.
“No snow until afternoon. Thermometer, maximum 22°, minimum 19°, mean 20° 35'. Wind gentle, and now nearly calm, from southward and eastward to southward.
“About tea-time (21st), the sun sufficiently low to give the effects of sunset, we saw distinctly to the north by west a series of hill-tops, apparently of the same configuration with those around us. The trend of the western coast extending northward from the point opposite our vessel receded westward, and a vacant space, either of unseen very low land or of water, separated it from the Terra Nova, which we see north of us. Whether this Grinnell Land, as our captain has named it, be a continuation of Cornwallis Island or a cape from a new northernland, or a new direction of the eastern coast of North Devon, or a new island, I am not prepared to say. We shall probably know more of each other before long.
“September 22, Sunday. A cloudless morning: no snow till afternoon. Our drift during the night has been to the northward; and, except an occasional crack or pool, our horizon was one mass of snow-covered ice.
“The beautifully clear sky with which the day opened gave us another opportunity of seeing the unvisited shores of Upper Wellington Sound. Our latitude by artificial horizon was 75° 24′ 21″ N., about sixty miles from Cape Hotham. Cape Bowden, on the eastern side, has disappeared; and on the west, Advance Bluff, a dark, projecting cape, from which we took sextant angles, was seen bearing to the west of south. To the northward and westward low land was seen, having the appearance of an island,[B] and mountain tops terminating the low strip ahead. The trend of the shore on our left, the western, is clearly to the westward since leaving Advance Bluff. It is rolling, with terraced shingle beach, and without bluffs. It terminates, or apparently terminates, abruptly, thus:
after which comes a strip without visible land, and then the mountain tops mentioned above. Beyond this western shore, distant only seven miles, we see mountain tops, distant and very high, rising above the clouds.