rorquals are seldom captured, great difficulty being experienced in killing these huge monsters, which are frequently known to measure as much as ninety feet in length. Scoresby mentions one measuring one hundred and twenty feet. Great as is their size, however, the amount of blubber to be obtained from them is very insignificant. They feed upon cod-fish (as many as eight or nine hundred have been found in the stomach of one of these whales) and are constantly seen off the south and west coast of Greenland. A falling temperature on the 27th of June, and a peculiar light blink along the horizon, gave us due notice of the immediate proximity of ice. As the weather was thick and foggy extra precautions were adopted in order to guard against coming into serious collision with any icebergs, for, however beautiful these floating islands of ice may be during bright clear weather, they are dangerous and formidable foes when near and unseen. True to the warning received, an iceberg was shortly afterwards sighted, and by 4 P.M. the ship was steaming through loose detached fragments of heavy floe ice. It is impossible to describe the excitement that prevailed on board on this first introduction of many among us to that icy world in which we afterwards lived for fifteen months. To me it gave rise to reminiscences of old times, but to the uninitiated it was an exciting scene, and was gazed upon with intense interest. The officer of the watch, desirous of having the honour of making the ship first touch ice, and being also under the impression that a reward of a bottle of champagne would be given to him who should first succeed in doing so, steered straight for a heavy piece nearly submerged. His efforts were crowned with success, but they were also accompanied by a gentle admonition that for the future he should be a little more careful of her Majesty's property, and avoid all such fragments as were likely to knock a hole in the bows of the ship. On the following morning we sighted the high, bold, and snow-capped hills in the neighbourhood of Cape Desolation. This headland was so called by that sturdy navigator, brave old John Davis, during his first voyage of discovery in the year 1585. In his quaint manner he describes "the land being very high and full of mightie mountaines all covered with snowe, no viewe of wood, grasse, or earth to be seene, and the shore for two leages into the sea so full of yce as that no shipping cold by any meanes come neere the same. The lothsome viewe of the shore, and irksome noyse of the yce was such as that it bred strange conceipts among us, so that we supposed the place to be wast and voyd of any sencible or vegitable creatures, whereupon I called the same Desolation." Icebergs were now constantly seen, some being of very considerable dimensions, and looming in the distance like real islands. As one of our men wittily remarked on seeing his first iceberg, it reminded him strongly of the Isle of Wight (white)!!