"I remember that time well," said Alec Garrock, a Shetlander, belonging to our ship. "It was a mercy no lives were lost, either escaping from the ships, or afterwards, when we were living on the ice, and travelling from one station to the other. It seems wonderful to me that I'm alive here, to talk about what once happened to me. The boat I was in had killed a whale in good style; and when we had lashed the fins together, and made it fast to the stern of the boat, we saw that a number of whales were blowing not far off--I ought to say we were close under an iceberg. We, of course, were eager to be among them; and as, you must know, the stern-boat had just before been sent to us with one hand in her with another line, we wanted him to stay by the dead fish. He said he would not--if we liked to go, so would he; but stay there by himself; while sport was going on, he would not. "At last we resolved to leave the small boat empty, and to take him in ours. To this he agreed. So, making the whale fast to his boat, and securing the boat to the berg, away we pulled, as fast as we could lay our backs to the oars, after a fish we saw blowing near us. Now what I tell you is true, mates. Not thirty fathoms had we pulled, when over toppled the iceberg right down on the boat, and we were nearly swamped with the sea it made. When we pulled back to look for the whale, neither it nor the boat was to be seen. You may fancy what would have become of us if we had been there!" "There are none of us, to my belief; but have often, if we would but acknowledge it, been mercifully preserved by Providence," observed my friend Andrew. "I won't speak of what has happened to myself; and Terence, and Peter here. No one will doubt, I hope, but that it was the finger of God directed you to take us off the iceberg; but every day some less remarkable case occurs. A block falls from aloft on the deck, where a moment before we were standing; a musket-ball passes close to one's ear; a topmast is carried away just as we have come off the yard; and fifty other things occur of like nature, and we never think of being grateful for our preservation. Talking of escapes, I once saw a man carried overboard by a line round his ankle as a fish was diving. We all gave him up for lost; but he had a sharp knife in the right-hand pocket of his jacket, and he kept his thoughts about him so well, that before he had got many fathoms down, he managed to stoop and cut the line below his foot, then striking with all his might, he rose to the surface."