Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/118

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forced to make sail. The mainsail went to pieces as soon as it was set, and we were once more in great jeopardy; but fortunately the storm abated, and we have since been threshing to windward, and are once more within Smith's Sound. Again the gale appears to have broken; the northern sky is clear. Our spars will not allow us to carry jib and topsail;—bad for entering the pack.

The temperature is 22°, and the decks are again slippery with ice. Forward, the ropes, blocks, stays, halyards, and every thing else, are covered with a solid coating, and icicles a foot long hang from the monkey-rail and rigging. If they look pretty enough in the sunlight, they have a very wintry aspect, and are not at all becoming to a ship.

I tried this morning to reach Cape Isabella, but met the pack where it had obstructed us before. Some patches of open water were observed in the midst of it; but we found it impossible to penetrate the intervening ice. My only chance now is to work up the Greenland coast, get hold of the fast ice, and, through such leads as must have been opened by the wind higher up the Sound, endeavor to effect a passage to the opposite shore. Of reaching that shore I do not yet despair, although the wind has apparently packed the ice upon it to such a degree that it looks like a hopeless undertaking. I have already an eye upon Fog Inlet, twenty miles above Cape Alexander on the Greenland coast, and I shall now try to reach that point for a new start.

While I write the wind is freshening, and under close-reefed sails we are making a little progress. My poor sailors have a sorry time of it, with the stiffened ropes. The schooner, everywhere above the water, is