AN ICE-TOURNAMENT.
24th.—Another anxious week has passed. Latterly we have experienced south-westerly currents similar to those which Parry describes when beset here in June, 1819. To-day we have had a strong S.E. breeze, with snow and dark weather. The wind had greatly moderated when the swell reached us about eight o'clock this evening. It is now ten o'clock; the long ocean swell already lifts its crest five feet above the hollow of the sea, causing its thick covering, of icy fragments to dash against each other and against us with unpleasant violence. It is however very beautiful to look upon, the dear old familiar ocean-swell! it has long been a stranger to us, and is welcome in our solitude. If the 'Fox' was as solid as her neighbors, I am quite sure she would enter into this ice-tournament with all their apparent heartiness, instead of audibly making known her sufferings to us. Every considerable surface of ice has been broken into many smaller ones; with feelings of exultation I watched the process from aloft. A floe-piece near us, of 100 yards in diameter, was speedily cracked so as to resemble a sort of labyrinth, or, still more, a field-spider's web. In the course of half an hour the family resemblance was totally lost; they had so battered each other, and struggled out of their original regularity. The rolling sea can no longer be checked; "the pack has taken upon itself the functions of an ocean," as Dr. Kane graphically expresses it.
26th.—At sea! How am I to describe the events of the last two days? It has pleased God to accord to us a deliverance in which His merciful protection contrasts—how strongly!—with our own utter helplessness; as if the successive mercies vouchsafed to us during our long, long winter and mysterious ice-drift had been concentrated and repeated in a single act. Thus forcibly does His great goodness come home to the mind!
I am in no humor for writing, being still tired, seedy, and perhaps a little seasick; at least I have a headache, caused by the rolling of the ship and rattling noise of everything.
THE 'FOX' IN PERIL.
On Saturday night, the 24th, I went on deck to spend the greater part of it in watching, and to determine what to do. The swell greatly increased; it had evidently been approaching for hours before it reached us, since it rose in proportion as the ice was broken up into smaller pieces. In a short time but few of them were equal in size to the ship's deck; most of them not half so large. I knew that near the pack-edge the sea would be very heavy and dangerous; but the wind was now fair, and having auxiliary steam-power, I resolved to push out of the ice if possible.
Shortly after midnight the ship was under sail, slowly boring her way to the eastward; at two o'clock on Sunday morning commenced steaming, the wind having failed. By eight o'clock we had advanced considerably to the eastward, and the swell had become dangerously high, the waves rising ten feet above the trough of the sea. The shocks of the ice against the ship were alarmingly heavy; it became necessary to steer exactly head-on to swell. We slowly passed a small iceberg 60 or 70 feet high; the swell forced it crashing through the pack, leaving a small water-space in its wake, but sufficient to allow the seas to break against its cliffs, and throw the spray in heavy showers quite over its summit.
CLEAR OF THE PACK.
The day wore on without change, except that the snow and mists cleared off. Gradually the swell increased, and rolled along more swiftly, becoming in fact a very heavy regular sea, rather than a swell. The ice often lay so closely packed that we could hardly force ahead, although the fair wind had again freshened up. Much heavy hummocky ice and large berg-pieces lay dispersed through the pack; a single thump from any of them would have been instant destruction. By five o'clock the ice became more loose, and clear spaces of water could be seen ahead. We went faster, received fewer though still more severe shocks, until at length we had room to steer clear of the heaviest pieces; and at eight o'clock we emerged from the villanous "pack," and were running fast through straggling pieces into a clear sea. The engines were stopped, and Mr. Brand permitted to rest after eighteen hours' duty, for we now have no one else capable of driving the engines.
Throughout the day I trembled for the safety of the rudder, and screw; deprived of the one or the other, even for half an hour, I think our fate would have been sealed; to have steered in any other direction than against the swell would have exposed, and probably sacrificed both.