The ships then began worming their way slowly through the ice drift. A grapnel would be thrown out on an ice floe. Up to this, the ships would haul by ropes. Both crews stood on guard at the deck rails with the long iron-shod ice poles in their hands, prodding and shoving off the huge masses when the ice threatened a crush. Six hours ebb and six hours flow was the rate of the tide, but where the Straits narrowed and the inflow beat against the ice jam, the incoming tide would sometimes last as long as nine hours. This was the time of greatest danger, for beaten between tide and ice, the Straits became a raging whirlpool. It was then the ships had to sheer away from the lashing undertow of the big bergs and stood out unsheltered to the crush and jam of the drive. Sometimes, a breeze and open passage gave them free way from the danger. At other times, the maelstrom of the advancing tide caught them in dead calm. Then the men had to leap out on the icepan and tow the ships away. Soaked to their armpits in ice water, toiling night and day, one day exposed to heat that was almost tropical, the next enveloped in a blizzard of sleet, the two crews began to show the effects of such terrible work. They were so completely worn out, Munck anchored on the north shore to let them rest. At Icy Cove off Baffin’s Land, one seaman—Andrew Staffreanger—died. Where he was buried, Munck remarked that the soil showed signs of mica and ore. To-day—it is interesting to note—those mica mines are being worked in Baffin’s Land. One night toward the end of July, ice swept on the ships from both sides. Suddenly the crew were tumbled from their berths by the dull rumbling as of an earthquake. The boards of the cabin floors had sprung. Ice had heaped higher than the yardarms—the ships were like toys, the sport of grim Northern giants. When the ships were examined, a gash was found in the keel of _The Lamprey_ from stem to stern as broad as one’s hand. Barely was this mended when the rudder was smashed from _The Unicorn_. A great icepan tossed up on end and shivered down in splinters that crashed over the decks like glass. A moment later a rolling sea swept the ships, sending the sailors sprawling, while the scuppers spouted a cataract of waters. Munck felt beaten. Again he ran to the north shore for shelter. While the sailors rested, the chaplain held services and made “offerings to God” beseeching His help. Munck, meanwhile, went ashore and set up the arms of the Danish King—a superfluous proceeding, as Baffin had already set up the arms of England here. On the ebb of the tide the sea calmed, and Munck succeeded in passing the most dangerous part of the Straits—the Second Narrows. An east wind cleared the sea of ice. Sails full blown, Munck’s ships shot out on the open water of Hudson Bay in the first week of September. Munck was six weeks traversing the Straits. It should not have taken longer than one. * * * * *