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Updated: May 2, 2025
Having now run over the place where the land was supposed to lie, without seeing the least signs of any, it was no longer to be doubted but that the ice-islands had deceived us as well as Mr Bouvet. The wind by this time having veered to the north, and increased to a perfect storm, attended as usual with snow and sleet, we handed the top-sails and hauled up E.N.E. under the courses.
Silently, easily, the brig's sides squeezed together, the deck bulged up, and the crushed remnant dropped down and was gone, while where she had been was occupied by the grinding conflict of the ice-islands. I felt regret at the destruction of this haven against the elements, but at the same time was well pleased at thought of my snugness inside my four shirts and three coats.
At six o'clock in the morning, the variation was 23' west, being then in the latitude of 58° 15' S., longitude 11° 41' W; and at six in the evening, being in the same latitude, and in the longitude of 9° 24' W., it was 1° 51' W. In the evening the wind abated; and during the night, it was variable between south and west. Ice-islands continually in sight.
On the 12th of December, Henry Fitz-Gerald, a feaman, departed this life; he was troubled with a disease in his lungs, but the scurvy was his principal malady. On the 13th, in the morning, we passed one of the largest ice-islands we had seen; we judged it not less than three miles in length, and its perpendicular height we supposed to be 350 feet.
We beat clear of the latitude of roaring gales blind with snow, and mountainous ice-islands like cities of alabaster in ruins, and seas ridging in thunder and foam to the height of our mizzentop, and heading north blew under wide wings of studding sails towards the sun, every day sinking some southern stars out of sight, and every night lifting above the sea-line some gem of the heavens dear to northern eyes.
If I met with a tornado, it was only an agreeable variety; water-spouts and ice-islands gave me no manner of alarm; and I have seldom been more composed than when catching a whale.
Ice-islands so constituted often capsize when afloat, and gravel once horizontal may have assumed, before the associated ice was melted, an inclined or vertical position. The packing of ice forced up on a coast may lead to a similar derangement in a frozen conglomerate of sand or shingle, and, as Mr.
We had run for several days together, at the rate of from 50 to 60 leagues in the 24 hours, in a north-east direction; and had passed through a lane or street, if it may be so called, of ice-islands, the whole of that distance: in general they were from the size of a country church, to the magnitude of one, two and three miles in circumference, and proportionably high.
Again we were plunging madly through the wildly breaking seas; but the wind blew steadily, and the ice-fields widened away on either side till they were lost to view. Once again we were saved by a merciful Providence from an almost inevitable destruction. Still, we had some hours of darkness before us, and an unknown sea full of ice-islands through which we must pass.
Next morning, the wind falling and veering to S.W., we steered N.E.; but this coarse was soon intercepted by numerous ice-islands; and, having but very little wind, we were obliged to steer such courses as carried us the clearest of them; so that we hardly made any advance, one way or other, during the whole day.
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