extricated by admirable seamanship, by crowding canvas in a heavy gale; but the Trafalgar was embayed by one erroneous manœuvre, and in the morning was closely beset. It was by a striking interposition of Divine Providence, that Capt. Scoresby was enabled to extricate his ship. He had retired to rest after a most exhausting day, and started from a perturbed slumber on perceiving-such is the effect of habitual vigilancethat the vessel was twice tacked within five minutes; and by his personal directions and efforts, the whole of their subsequent manœuvres were regulated. On this promptitude turned, possibly the personal safety of the crew, certainly the ultimate success of the voyage, since the delay of a few minutes more would have endangered the whole.

After a cruize thus marked by disaster, disappointment, enterprise, and partial success, Captain Scoresby resolved on persevering in this quarter, the only one where a possibility of further acquisition remained, until the latest period of the season. In this determination he was partly influenced by the situation of the Fame and the Trafalgar, both beset' in his immediate neighbourhood. He was amply rewarded for his resolution, by encountering, on the 15th of August, a run of 'fish,' of which his harpooners struck five, and captured three: their united value was not less than £2,100, thus, exultingly writes Capt. S., raising us at once to the level of the most ⚫ successful fishers of the season.' In the meantime, the Fame and the Trafalgar escaped, but too late to share in the run;' the latter had been in great danger. The perils of the voyage had not, however, yet ceased, and on the 23rd of August, a heavy gale placed the ship in circumstances of imminent hazard. Several icebergs drove directly towards the vessel. The first

'passed within a few feet of the rudder; and, when at a very little distance, divided into two, and both parts upset with a terrible commotion. Had it broken against the ship, its effects might have been destructive. The fragility of icebergs, at this season, is well known, and their liability to break and turn over, quite notorious. In the summer of 1821, the captain of a whaler that had been wrecked in Baffin's Bay, wishing to make himself useful in the ship that he had fled to for refuge, offered to assist in fixing an anchor in an ice-berg, to which it was expedient that the ship should be made fast. He was accompanied by a sailor to the berg, and began to make a hole for the reception of the ice-anchor; but almost the first blow that he struck with the axe, occasioned an instantaneous rent of the mass of ice through the middle, and the two portions fell in opposite directions. The captain, aware of his danger, the instant the ice began to move, ran up the division on which he was situated, in the contrary direction of its revolution, and fortunately succeeded in balanc

ing himself on the changeable summit until it attained an equilibrium. But his companion fell between the two masses, and would probably have been instantly crushed or suffocated, had not the efflux of water, produced by the rising of the submerged parts of the ice, hurried him from between them, almost alongside of a boat that was waiting near the place.' pp. 300, 1.

Two others came in contact with the Baffin; the first without doing any injury, and the latter with but slight damage. The scene which followed, was of a most alarming kind; and, but for its extreme length, we would cite the whole passage as a striking example of coolness, skill, and perseverance. The ship was moored to a floe,' or large sheet of ice, of defined, though extensive dimensions; and two others made their appearance, bearing down upon her from different quarters. To prevent their first crush, a large piece of ice was, by means of a hawser, warped into such a situation as to interpose between the masses on their approximation; and the last mentioned iceberg having placed itself across the bows,' apparently presented an additional security. All these arrangements were, however, rendered ineffectual by a sudden and unforeseen change in the motion of the floes. The iceberg was thrust back upon the vessel, forcing it upon a broad tongue, or shelf • under water,' of the floe, until she was fairly a-ground upon the ice.

When the pressure ceased, we found that the ship had risen six or eight feet forward, and about two feet abaft.

The floe on the starboard side was about a mile in diameter, and forty feet in thickness, having a regular wall-side of solid ice, five feet in height above the sea; on the tongue of this the ship was grounded. The iceberg on the larboard side was about twenty feet high, and was in contact with the railing at the bows, and with the gun-wale and channel-bends amidships. This berg was connected with a body of floes to the westward, several leagues in breadth. The only clear place was directly astern, where a small interstice and vein of water was produced, by the intervention of the bergs. Any human exertion. for our extrication, from such a situation, was now in vain; the ship being firmly cradled upon the tongues of ice, which sustained her weight. Every instant we were apprehensive of her total destruction, but the extraordinary disposition of the ice beneath her, was the means of her preservation. The force exerted upon the ship, to place her in such a situation, must evidently have been very violent. Two or three sharp cracks were heard at the time the ship was lifted, and a piece of plank, which proved to be part of the false keel, was torn off and floated up by the bows; but no serious injury was yet discovered. Our situation, however, was at this time almost as dangerous and painful, immediate hazard of our lives excepted, as possible. Every moment threatened us with shipwreck; while the raging

of the storm, the heavy bewildering fall of sleet and snow, and the circumstance of every man on board being wet to the skin, ren dered the prospect of our having to take refuge on the ice most distressing. Our only hope of safety in such a calamity, was the supposed proximity of the Fame. Yet we well knew that she must also be in danger; and, perhaps, in a situation as bad as our own.'

• We remained in this state of anxiety and apprehension about two hours. On the one hand, we feared the calamity of shipwreck; on the other, in case of her preservation, we looked forward to immense difficulties, before the ship so firmly grounded could be got afloat. While I walked the deck under a variety of conflicting feelings, produced by the anticipation of probable events, and under the solemnizing influence natural to a situation of extreme peril, I was suddenly aroused by another squeeze of the ice, indicated by the cracking of the ship and the motion of the berg, which seemed to mark the moment of destruction. But the goodness of the ALMIGHTY proved better to us than our fears. This renewed pressure, by a singular and striking providence, was the means of our preservation. The nip took the ship about the bows, where it was received on a part rendered prodigiously strong by its arched form, and the thickness of the interior fortifications." It acted like the propulsion of a round body squeezed between the fingers, driving the ship astern, and projecting her clear of all the ice, fairly afloat, with a velocity equal to that of her first launching!

Fortunately the ropes and anchors held until her stern-way was overcome. As soon as she was brought up, our attention was instantly turned to more dangers; and our previous state of anxious inaction instantly gave place to the most persevering and vigorous exertions for our preservation.' pp. 305-8.

Behind them was a clear vein' of water; but the ice was rapidly closing in, and every thing depended on dropping* to leeward with sufficient velocity, since there was no room to swing the ship round so as to get under way. Not a moment was to be lost; and if the ropes or anchors had given way under the strain, wreck was nearly certain. The two nearest points were cleared at the moment when they had closed within two or three feet of the ship's breadth. In five minutes afterwards,

To drop a ship is a nautical phrase, expressive of the operation of removing under the simple action of the wind, by veering out the ropes by which the ship is moored. Thus, in the present example, the wind, blowing directly down the channel betwixt the two floes where the ship was moored, forced her to leeward along the channel, whenever the ropes were slacked.' p. 308.

they dashed together, forcing up under the tremendous pressure some hundreds of tons of ice. Before the rope and hawsers could be disengaged, two other points of the revolving ice appeared astern, rapidly approaching each other.

Remaining where we were, though but for five minutes, was inevitable shipwreck; and to trust to the strength of a warp of five inches circumference, the only mooring rope we had now at command, afforded but small hope of a better fate; for, in the event of the ship breaking adrift, as there was not breadth between the floes to swing, she must fall astern with such a shock against the ice, as could scarcely fail to be destructive. Possible safety, however, was preferred to certain destruction. We now slacked astern by the warp fastened to the second hawser, which, to our astonishment and delight, sustained the prodigious strain; and although it was not capable of bringing the ship up, yet it so far resisted her velocity, that at the moment when it came to an end, a hawser, that was meanwhile hauled on board, was fastened to another anchor placed for its attachment, whereby the motion astern was suspended. On this occasion, we again escaped the nip by only three or four feet, and the floes came in contact with unabated violence, scarcely a ship's length ahead. But more and more approximating points appearing astern, we dropped the ship the whole length of our last hawser, with the hope of avoiding them; but it only carried us clear of the first. We were then brought to a stand: for the other hawsers and warp, forming a continuous line of 700 yards in length, got entangled, and nipped by the floes, so that we were under the necessity of slipping the end and fastening it to the ice. As we had now no rope left of sufficient strength with which to shift the hawser, our progress would have been suspended, and our previous exertions rendered nugatory, had we not brought into use a small mooring chain that was fortunately at hand. Before the hawser was again fastened, however, the hook of the chain broke, and the ship was entirely adrift. But it providentially happened, that the people who were on the ice, having seized upon the end of the hawser, were enabled to cast it over an anchor that an officer was engaged in setting, at the very last moment that could have served for our preservation! The severe strain to which this hawser was subjected, broke one of its strands, and called for the instant renewal of the chain. This was a most narrow escape; but there was another that succeeded, which was equally striking. When slacking astern by the hawser, the ship swung alongside the eastern floe into a little bight, and the rudder unfortunately caught behind a point which projected some feet to windward. The floes were so nearly close, that we had not time to heave ahead, had this measure been practicable under such a storm. We were in a state of extreme jeopardy. One of the after-sails was instantly loosed, and hauled over to the starboard quarter; the action of this, happily coinciding with a momentary diminution of the wind, when the tension of the ropes drew the ship ahead, turned her stern clear

of the point. We instantly slacked astern and dropped beyond this danger. pp. 309-311.

Other obstacles of equal magnitude were overcome by the same skill and perseverance, though many of the manœuvres were effected by means of a doubtful chain and a stranded rope, the wind blowing such a hurricane that a speaking-trumpet would scarcely carry the voice from the companion to the windlass. The narrow channel down which the Baffin dropped, was a mile in length, and there was not in it a single interval where a delay of ten minutes would not have caused the ship to be crushed to splinters. The floes between which she was entangled, were in a state of counter-revolution, grinding against each other in opposite directions, like a pair of cogged wheels; nor was any respite obtained until their rotatory motion had ceased.

We have little room for comment on the general results of this interesting voyage; nor, in fact, does any seem called for beyond the general statements which we have given. Mr. Scoresby has made a regular survey of a large extent of unknown coast; he has examined its productions, mineral, vegetable, and animal; he has proved at least its occasional accessibility; and he has ascertained the existence of human residents, as well as the probable dissimilarity of some of their habits from those of the Esquimaux.

We have still to add to the detail of disaster, an event which took place towards the close of the voyage. After having, on the 30th of August, passed through the sea-stream' of ice, and spread their canvas joyously for their homeward course, on the 11th of September, the Baffin's crew were exposed, on a lee-shore, to a fearful storm; by far the heaviest,' writes Captain Scoresby, I ever encountered.'

No water had yet been shipped, though the tremendous sea that was running, was received upon the ship's quarter, or beam, being in a direction of all others the most dangerous. A fatal wave, however, at length struck the quarter, with tremendous violence, and throwing up a vast weight of water, carried along with it, in its passage across the deck, one of our harpooners, or principal officers (who, along with several others, was employed on the weather-rail endeavouring to secure one of the boats hanging over the side) quite over the heads of his companions, and swept him overboard! Most of the crew being under water at the same time, his loss was not known until he was discovered just passing under the ship's stern, but out of reach, and lying apparently insensible upon the wave. He was only seen for a few seconds, and then disappeared for ever.

For some minutes, it was not known who the sufferer was. Every one was greatly distressed; and each, in his anxious exclamations, reVOL. XX. N.S.

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