Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/292

 fired a salute from the cannon every hour to make known the presence of the vessel. It made a tremendous noise among the icebergs, but had no effect beyond frightening the molly-mokes and rotches, who came flying out in clouds. Squibs and rockets in abundance were sent up during the night, but equally without result. There was no alternative but to proceed.

By six o'clock next morning the Forward had lost sight of Upernavik and its ugly posts all along the shore, with strips of seal intestines and paunches of deer hanging to dry. The wind was S.E., and the temperature had risen to 32⁰. The sun appeared through the fog, and the icebergs began to give way a little beneath his melting beams.

The white, dazzling reflections of his rays, however, had a disastrous effect on the men. Wolsten the gunner, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell, were attacked with snow blindness, a very common disease in spring, and often terminating among the Esquimaux in total loss of sight. The Doctor advised everyone, and especially those suffering from the complaint, to wear a green gauze veil, and he was the first to follow his own prescription.

The dogs Shandon had purchased at Upernavik turned out rather wild at first, but they soon became used to the ship, and Captain got on very well with his new associates. He seemed no stranger to their ways, and, as Clifton was not slow to remark, he had evidently been among his Greenland brethren before.

After leaving Upernavik the appearance of the coast quite changed. Immense glaciers stood out against the gray sky, and in the west, beyond the opening of Lancaster Sound, vast ice-fields extended, ridged with hummocks at regular intervals. There was great danger of the brig becoming nipped, as each instant the leads got more impracticable. Shandon had the furnaces lighted, and till the 11th managed to pursue a winding course among the loose floes, but on the morning of the 12th the Forward found herself beset on all sides. Steam proved powerless, and there was no alternative but to cut a way through the ice-fields. This involved great fatigue, and a mutinous spirit began to manifest itself in some of the crew, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolsten. Certainly it was hard labor to saw through huge masses six and seven feet thick, and when