“Here we found a big berg in a good position and made us a camp on it. We dug a deep cache and filled it with frozen meat and fowls. We dipped fresh water from small wooden troughs set in the top of the berg, which filled with water the first rain.
“When the proper time came the berg began to drift out to sea. Then we got into the Equatorial drift. It was a rough and strange experience.
“For months we lived on the berg, watching every day for a sail. Day by day the warm waters licked the ice away until all that was left of the big ice structure was about an acre in area. Then we knew that a great danger threatened us.
“One day Jim Welch, with a white face, came out, and said:
“‘Did ye feel that shiver in the berg a moment ago, lads? I tell ye she’ll turn turtle before two days!’
“You know that all bergs, after melting to a certain point, will grow top-heavy and turn over. That would settle our ease. And yet no sail.
“But the next morning at sunrise a Venezuelan schooner lay off our lee. The Gringo skipper answered our hail and took us off. He carried us to Caracas and we then shipped for New York.
“We were glad to get home, and none of us wanted to go back. But we could say that we had visited a part of the world that was never explored.
“And in that light we felt as big as Columbus, for there’s no telling what may some day come out of the discovery when trade is opened up. And that, mates, is the whole of my story!”