Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/31

Rh think for a moment of the Power that controls the forces of nature.

During some years there are many more icebergs in the great Southern Ocean than during others, and the summer of 1892–93—that is to say, our northern winter, November till February—was such a year. On December 23rd and 24th, 1892, on board the Balæna, we fell in with a great host of bergs in the vicinity of the Danger Islets; they were all of great size, some being 3 or 4 miles long; at one time I counted as many as sixty from the deck, while more could be seen from the mast head. They were all of similar height, about 100 or 150 feet high. Each one was table-topped. At one time we passed through a regular street, lined on each side with towering bergs, each a temple in itself, now Doric, now Egyptian, each perfectly carved and shaped, each purer and whiter than the other, glittering in the sun, pearl grey in the shade and rich blue in the clefts and caves which pierced their sides. This street or avenue was several miles long, indeed some individual bergs were fully half-a-mile in length; side avenues opened into this main avenue. Sometimes we sailed into an open piazza, sometimes past the end of so narrow and winding a passage that it would have been dangerous even for one of our ship's boats to attempt to