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Rh ship. It became intensely cold, the rigging was frozen, and fierce snow squalls at times made it almost impossible to remain on deck, whilst daylight disappeared in early afternoon. "The Skipper," said the first mate to me, "is trying the great circle sailing, that is, going far South, so as to take advantage of the flattening of the earth's surface, and thus shortening the distance from West to East. He has always hitherto been in the Eastern trade, and has never been round the Horn; we are much further South than usual, but the ice, now in mid-winter, should be fast, and we may not meet much of it loose, but I do not half like it."

One night it was so cold in my cabin, where I was in my bunk, dressed, and wrapped in blankets, reading, as it was too soon to try to sleep, that by way of a change I got into a suit of sailor's overalls, and went up on the poop deck. A brilliant moon lit up the waves; ropes and spars coated with ice sparkled with points of light; the wake of the vessel astern shone like a path of silver; the vessel rolling heavily, and going at a great pace; only the Captain and first mate were on the poop, with two men at the wheel, and a couple on the look-out at the break of the poop on either side. I stood holding on to a meat safe, drinking hot cocoa in a tin pannikin, out of a bucket, provided by the Captain for the men on watch, and I could see under the reefed topsails right along the ship to the bows.

Suddenly I saw on the horizon what, to my landsman's eyes, looked like a long line of white foam, which, of course, was not probable in mid ocean. That moment came a loud cry from the men on the foreyard, "Ice right ahead!" Captain and mate