United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Ponds of various sizes, and sheets of water whose dimensions entitled them to be styled lakes, spangled the white surface of the floes, and around these were sporting innumerable flocks of wild fowl, many of which, being pure white, glanced like snow-flakes in the sunshine. Far off to the west the ice came down with heavy uniformity to the water's edge.
There may be a long low swell, but it is not helping us apparently; to-night the floes around are indisputably as large as ever and I see little sign of their breaking or becoming less tightly locked. It is a very, very trying time. It's all very disheartening. The bright side is that everyone is prepared to exert himself to the utmost however poor the result of our labours may show.
"Mind that you hug the land, Mr Bolton," said the captain at parting, "don't get farther out on the floes than you can help. To meet with a gale on the ice is no joke in these latitudes."
Mighty blocks of ice, gripped between meeting floes, rose slowly till they jumped like cherry-stones squeezed between thumb and finger. The pressure of millions of tons of moving ice was crushing and smashing inexorably. If the ship was once gripped firmly her fate would be sealed. The gale from the south-west blew all night and moderated during the afternoon of the 2nd to a stiff breeze.
When they started, the ice had not yet all left the Ottawa River, and they wound their way through crowding floes, or portaged here and there for miles, the eager sun of spring above with scarcely a cloud to trail behind him. At last the river cleared, and for leagues they travelled to the north-west, and came at last to the Lake of the Winds.
Gardiner now led, leaving his consort to follow as closely in his wake as she could keep. Much greater difficulty, and dangers indeed, were encountered among the broken and grating floes, than had been expected, or previously met with. Notwithstanding fenders were got out on all sides, many a rude shock was sustained, and the copper suffered in several places.
"The Brethren were overwhelmed with amazement at their miraculous escape, and even the Esquimaux expressed gratitude to God for their deliverance." Such is the terrible aspect in which field-ice is seen when broken up and converted into smaller masses or floes.
A close search by the technically expert would have revealed scars of age in the little lady, furrows worn in her sides by grinding ice floes, patches in the sails, strengthening pieces in the cross-trees and sad-looking deadeyes and lanyards which plainly told of a bygone age. But the merchant seamen who watched from the dock side were kind and said nothing.
The ice separating us from the lanes was loose, but did not appear to be workable for the boats. The long swell from the north-west was coming in more freely than on the previous day and was driving the floes together in the utmost confusion.
He had one moment of wild eagerness to try his luck in a sudden assault, but that passed as suddenly as it came; and with the pistol still covering him, he moved out into the open road, with a helpless anger on him. A crescent moon was struggling through floes of fleecy clouds, the stars were shining, and so the road was not entirely dark. He went about thirty steps, then turned and looked back.
Word Of The Day