But I have not time to give you an account of all the whales we killed. We were unusually successful for the season of the year and that side of the bay. We had now to cross over to the west side, in some of the bays on which coast whales were said to abound. To effect this, we were obliged to pass through the middle ice, a work of great labour and often of danger. The route chosen by our captain was round by the north, across Melville Bay. At first we got on merrily enough, a course of northerly winds having blown the ice to the southward. After a time, however, the favourable wind ceased, and the ice drifting slowly back, we were obliged to commence cutting our way through it. While it moved thus gently, with our ice saws we cut a canal towards the nearest piece of clear water we could see ahead, and towed the ship along it. Then, perhaps, we were able to make sail for an hour or so, once more to find a barrier drawn across our course. Sometimes for a whole day together the crew were sawing and towing, and I heard some of them say that they might have to go on that way for a month. Still they kept their tempers, and worked with a will, in the hopes of getting a full ship at the end. I was awaked, however, one morning, by hearing the captain summoned on deck, and when I followed him there I saw nothing but long faces, and not without good reason. The clouds were flying rapidly overhead from the S.S.W., and the ice was moving along and upheaving in a peculiarly ominous manner. No time was lost in getting out the ice saws to cut a dock into which to tow the ship. This is a work of great labour, but all hands worked with a will, for they well knew that the safety of the ship depended on the speed with which it was accomplished. The ship had just been towed into the dock, when the ice to the southward began to lift and heave more violently than before. I saw the captain, Mr. Grummet, Sandy Dow, and other old hands, looking out anxiously, and I guessed not without good cause. There was a loud rumbling crashing sound, something like thunder, and yet more terrible. Not a single spot of clear water could be seen, but far as the eye could reach towards the south there appeared huge masses of ice rising with their edges uppermost, leaping and overlapping each other, tearing and crushing those below them to pieces. Still on they pressed, mass behind mass, the places of those which rose up in front immediately supplied by others in the rear. The ice surrounding us was in violent commotion. Closer and closer it pressed around. Suddenly, as if pushed towards us by some unseen giant’s hand, a huge floe came gliding on. “A nip, a nip,” cried the crew. Calmly the captain had stood watching the upheaving of the icy sea. He now ordered all hands to bring their bedding and clothes on deck. Some casks of provision had already been got up. These were lowered on to the ice alongside, and rolled to a distance. The