Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History

Book

Open Original Text

tains of ice; and also a great number of very
large whales, which used to come close to our ship, and blow the water
up to a very great height in the air. One morning we had vast
quantities of sea-horses about the ship, which neighed exactly like
any other horses. We fired some harpoon guns amongst them, in order to
take some, but we could not get any. The 30th, the captain of a
Greenland ship came on board, and told us of three ships that were
lost in the ice; however we still held on our course till July the
11th, when we were stopt by one compact impenetrable body of ice. We
ran along it from east to west above ten degrees; and on the 27th we
got as far north as 80, 37; and in 19 or 20 degrees east longitude
from London. On the 29th and 30th of July we saw one continued plain
of smooth unbroken ice, bounded only by the horizon; and we fastened
to a piece of ice that was eight yards eleven inches thick. We had
generally sunshine, and constant daylight; which gave cheerfulness and
novelty to the whole of this striking, grand, and uncommon scene; and,
to heighten it still more, the reflection of the sun from the ice gave
the clouds a most beautiful appearance. We killed many different
animals at this time, and among the rest nine bears. Though they had
nothing in their paunches but water yet they were all very fat. We
used to decoy them to the ship sometimes by burning feathers or skins.
I thought them coarse eating, but some of the ship's company relished
them very much. Some of our people once, in the boat, fired at and
wounded a sea-horse, which dived immediately; and, in a little time
after, brought up with it a number of others. They all joined in an
attack upon the boat, and were with difficulty prevented from staving
or oversetting her; but a boat from the Carcass having come to assist
ours, and joined it, they dispersed, after having wrested an oar from
one of the men. One of the ship's boats had before been attacked in
the same manner, but happily no harm was done. Though we wounded
several of these animals we never got but one. We remained hereabouts
until the 1st of August; when the two ships got completely fastened in
the ice, occasioned by the loose ice that set in from the sea. This
made our situation very dreadful and alarming; so that on the 7th day
we were in very great apprehension of having the ships squeezed to
pieces. The officers now held a council to know what was best for us
to do in order to save our lives; and it was determined that we should
endeavour to escape by dragging our boats along the ice towards the
sea; which, however, was farther off than any of us thought. This
determination filled us with extreme dejection, and confounded us with
despair; for we had very little prospect of escaping with life.
However, we sawed some of the ice about the ships to keep it from
hurting them; and thus kept them in a kind of pond. We then began to
drag the boats as well as we could towards the sea; but, after two or
three days labour, we made very little progress; so that some of our
hearts totally failed us, and I really began to give up myself for
lost, when I saw our surrounding calamities. While we were at this
hard labour I once fell into a pond we had made amongst some loose
ice, and was very near being drowned; but providentially some people
were near who gave me immediate assistance, and thereby I escaped
drowning. Our deplorable condition, which kept up the constant
apprehension of our perishing in the ice, brought me gradually to
think of eternity in such a manner as I never had done before. I had
the fears of death hourly upon me, and shuddered at the thoughts of
meeting the grim king of terrors in the _natural_ state I then was in,
and was exceedingly doubtful of a happy eternity if I should die in
it. I had no hopes of my life being prolonged for any time; for we
saw that our existence could not be long on the ice after leaving the
ships, which were now out of sight, and some miles from the boats. Our
appearance now became truly lamentable; pale dejection seized every
countenance; many, who had been before blasphemers, in this our
distress began to call on the good God of heaven for his help; and in
the time of our utter need he heard us, and against hope or human
probability delivered us! It was the eleventh day of the ships being
thus fastened, and the fourth of our drawing the boats in this manner,
that the wind changed to the E.N.E. The weather immediately became
mild, and the ice broke towards the sea, which was to the S.W. of us.
Many of us on this got on board again, and with all our might we hove
the ships into every open water we could find, and made all the sail
on them in our power; and now, having a prospect of success, we made
signals for the boats and the remainder of the people. This seemed to
us like a reprieve from death; and happy was the man who could first
get on board of any ship, or the first boat he could meet. We then
proceeded in this manner till we got into the open water again, which
we accomplished in about thirty hours, to our infinite joy and
gladness of heart. As soon as we were out of danger we came to anchor
and refitted; and on the 19th of August we sailed from this
uninhabited extremity of the world, where the inhospitable climate
affords neither food nor shelter, and not a tree or shrub of any kind
grows amongst its barren rocks; but all is one desolate and expanded
waste of ice, which even the constant beams of the sun for six months
in the year cannot penetrate or dissolve. The sun now being on the
decline the days shortened as we sailed to the southward; and, on the
28th, in latitude 73, it was dark by ten o'clock at night. September
the 10th, in latitude 58-59, we met a very severe gale of wind and
high seas, and shipped a great deal of water in the space of ten
hours. This made us work exceedingly hard at all our pumps a whole
day; and one sea, which struck the ship with more force than any thing
I ever met with of the kind before, laid her under water for some
time, so that we thought she would have gone down. Two boats were
washed from the booms, and the long-boat from the chucks: all other
moveable things on the deck were also washed away, among which were
many curious things of different kinds which we had brought from
Greenland; and we were obliged, in order to lighten the ship, to toss
some of our guns overboard. We saw a ship, at the same time, in very
great distress, and her masts were gone; but we were unable to assist
her. We now lost sight of the Carcass till the 26th, when we saw land
about Orfordness, off which place she joined us. From thence we sailed
for London, and on the 30th came up to Deptford. And thus ended our
Arctic voyage, to the no small joy of all on board, after having been
absent four months; in which time, at the imminent hazard of our
lives, we explored nearly as far towards the Pole as 81 degrees north,
and 20 degrees east longitude; being much farther, by all accoun

Previous Next