On the 1st August the ice began to gather thick, and a violent storm driving it against the vessels, placed them in the greatest peril for a number of days. On the 20th a dreadful gale arose from the north-east, in which the Guillamine suffered very considerable damage. In this awful tempest, out of the five ships two went down, while a third had sprung a number of leaks. The crews were taken on board of the two remaining barks, which they greatly incommoded. On the 25th all the three were completely frozen in, when it was resolved to send a party of twelve men to seek aid from four vessels which a few days before had been driven into a station at a little distance; but by the time of their arrival two of these had been dashed to pieces, and the other two were in the most deplorable condition. Two Hamburgh ships, somewhat farther removed, had perished in a similar manner. Meantime the former came in sight of Gale Hamkes’ Land, in Greenland, and the tempest still pushing them gradually to the southward, Iceland at length appeared on their left. The two more distant ships found a little opening, through which they contrived to escape. The crews of the three others were beginning to hope that they might at last be equally fortunate, when, on the 13th September, a whole mountain of ice fell upon the Guillamine. The men, half naked, leaped out upon the frozen surface, saving with difficulty a small portion of their provisions. The broken remnants of the vessel were soon buried under enormous piles of ice. Of the two other ships, one commanded by Jeldert Janz had just met a similar fate, and there remained only that of one other, to which all now looked for refuge. By leaping from one fragment of ice to another, the men, not without danger, contrived to reach this vessel, which, though in extreme distress, received them on board. Shattered and overcrowded, she was obliged immediately after to accommodate fifty other seamen, the crew of a Hamburg ship which had just gone down, the chief harpooner and twelve of the mariners having perished. These numerous companies, squeezed into one vessel, suffered every kind of distress. Famine, in its most direful forms, began to stare them in the face. All remoter fears, however, gave way, when on the 11th October, the vessel went to pieces in the same sudden manner as the others, leaving to the unfortunate sailors scarcely time enough to leap upon the ice with their remaining stores. With great difficulty they reached a field of some extent, and contrived with their torn sails to rear a sort of covering; but, sensible that, by remaining on this desolate spot, they must certainly perish, they saw no safety except in scrambling over the frozen surface to the coast of Greenland, which was in view. With infinite toil they effected their object, and happily met some inhabitants, who received them hospitably, and regaled them with dried fish and seals’ flesh. Thence they pushed across that dreary