pushed forward into the least connected part. By availing ourselves of every advantage of sailing, where sailing was practicable, and _boring_ or drifting where the pieces of ice lay close together, we at length reached the leeward part of a narrow channel, in which we had to ply a considerable distance against the wind. When performing this, the wind, which had hitherto blown a brisk breeze from the north, increased to a strong gale. The ship was placed in such a critical situation that we could not, for above an hour, accomplish any reduction of the sails; and while I was personally engaged performing the duty of a pilot on the topmast-head, the bending of the mast was so uncommon that I was seriously alarmed for its stability. At length, we were enabled to reef our sails, and for some time proceeded with less danger. Our direction was now east, then north for several hours, then easterly, ten or fifteen miles; when, after eighteen hours of the most difficult and occasionally hazardous sailing, in which the ship received some hard blows from the ice, after pursuing a tedious course nearly ninety miles, and accomplishing a distance on a direct north-east course of about forty miles, we found ourselves at the very margin of the sea, separated only by a narrow sea-stream. The sea was so great without, and the wind so violent, that we durst not hazard an attempt to force through this remaining obstacle. After waiting about thirty hours, on the morning of the 28th of May, the weather cleared, and the wind abated. The sea-stream was now augmented to upwards of a mile broad. One place alone was visible where the breadth was less considerable, and through it we accomplished our final escape into the open sea. I have thus been minute in the relation of our extrication from an alarming, though not very uncommon state of besetment, in order to give a faint idea of the difficulties and dangers which those engaged in the whale-fishery have occasionally to encounter, as well as to illustrate the manner in which ships are carried away from their original situation by the regularity of the drift of ice to the south-westward. The life of the mariner is one always of great labour and peril, but in navigating these arctic seas he is exposed to sudden and peculiar dangers.