Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/54

50 scraping the rugged face of the berg, we in a few minutes reached its western termination; the 'under tow,' as it is called, or the reaction of the water from its vertical cliffs, alone preventing us being driven to atoms against it. No sooner had we cleared it than another was seen directly astern of us, against which we were running; and the difficulty now was to get the ship's head turned round and pointed fairly through between the two bergs, the breadth of the intervening space not exceeding three times her own breadth; this, however, we happily accomplished; and in a few minutes, after getting the wind, she dashed through the narrow channel between two perpendicular walls of ice, and the foaming breakers which stretched across it, and the next minute we were in smooth water under its lee.

"A cluster of bergs was seen to windward extending as far as the eye could discern, and so closely connected, that, except the small opening by which we had escaped, they appeared to form an unbroken continuous line; it seems, therefore, not at all improbable that the collision with the Terror was the means of our preservation, by forcing us backwards to the only practicable channel, instead of permitting us, as we were endeavouring, to run to the eastward, and become entangled in a labyrinth