Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/111

 will be driven out to sea, which is everywhere filled with heavy ice.

August 29th, 12 o'clock, M.

There has been a dead calm under the coast for an hour. The "table-cloth" has lifted from the cape, and there is a decided change in the northern sky. The light windy clouds are disappearing, and stratus clouds are taking their place. The neck of the gale appears to be broken.

2 o'clock, P. M.

My calculations of the morning were quite wrong. The gale howls more furiously than ever. We are lying off Cape Saumarez, about two miles from shore. Failing to reach Sutherland Island, we were forced to run down the coast with the hope of finding shelter in the deep bay below; but the wind, sweeping round the cape, drove us back, and we are now trying to crawl in shore and get an anchor down in a little cove near by, and there repair our torn sails. We are a very uncomfortable party. The spray flies over the vessel, sheathing her in ice. Long icicles hang from the rigging and the bulwarks. The bob-*stays and other head-gear are the thickness of a man's body; and, most unseamanlike procedure, we have to throw ashes on the deck to get about.

I can now readily understand how Inglefield was forced to fly from Smith's Sound. If the gale which he encountered resembled this one, he could not, with double the steam-power of the Isabella, have made headway against it. Were I to leave the shelter of these friendly cliffs I should have to run with even greater celerity;—and, very likely, to destruction.

The squalls which strike us are perfectly terrific, and the calms which follow them are suggestive of