[166] Het bleef noch al dicht—it (the ship) remained quite tight. [↑]
[168] Te schuyven vant ys—to be moved by the ice. [↑]
[169] Vaetkens—small casks. [↑]
[170] Soo dat de scheck achter van den steven geschoven werde—so that the ice-knees (chocks) started from the stern-post. [↑]
[171] Hielde de scheck noch dat zy daeraen bleef hangen—kept the ice-knees still hanging on. [↑]
[172] Ende de bouteloef brack mede stucken met een nieu cabeltou dat wy op het ys hadden vast ghemaeckt—and the bumpkin likewise broke away, with a new cable, which we had made fast to the ice. The bouteloef or botteloef (in English, bumpkin) is a piece of iron, projecting from the [[103]]stem of the ship, and used for the purpose of giving more breadth to the fore-sail. It is no longer met with in square-rigged vessels, but only in small craft. It would seem to be one of the last things to which a seaman would attach a cable; but it may have been merely temporarily, or for some reason that cannot now be discovered. [↑]
[173] Jae, datter ys berghen dreven, soo groot als de soutberghen in Spaengien—yea, there drifted icebergs by us, as big as the salt mountains in Spain. Allusion is evidently here made to the celebrated salt mines of Cardona, about sixteen leagues from Barcelona, where “the great body of the salt forms a rugged precipice, which is reckoned between 400 and 500 feet in height”. See Dr. Traill’s “Observations” on the subject, in Trans. Geol. Soc. (1st ser.), vol. iii, p. 404. Our author’s familiar comparison of the icebergs to these salt rocks, may be taken as a proof that he had been in Spain, and was personally acquainted with the locality. [↑]