Page:Shipwrecks and disasters at sea.pdf/3

 I supplied them amply with provisions, and sent all hands to assist in dragging the boats towards a lean, or opening of water. From the mast head I watched the parting of the two ships’ companies, which was affecting in the extreme, and heightened by an acute sense of their mutual dangers.

On Friday last we caught a whale, and another on the 16th, which was a great relief to our crew, as by that means we caught the sharks which came to feed on the dead fish. All of us at this period were frost-bitten, some severely so. While we were disposing of the blubber, we found to our infinite regret that all the water in the casks was congealed to a mass of solid ice; the heads too burst; so they were hoisted on deck for the cooper to repair.

On February 22d an enormous ice-berg advanced direct towards the vessel’s stern : all hands were instantly on the alert, and most of the crew leaped on the ice with which we were hemmed in, with their clothes in their hands, concluding as a matter of course, that the ship would be lost. We lowered also on the ice six cwt of bread, and had scarcely effected our operations, when onwards with a tremendous crash came the ice-berg, cracking the ice in every direction. At this moment, a number of our men were behind the gigantic mass, and made certain that the vessel was crushed to atoms: in a short time however, they again saw her, and hailed her with three hearty cheers. When the ice-berg passed the ship, the cooper was working on the