“Standing to the southward, we shortly came up with a large floe alive with small running hummocks and stream ice. It was blowing stiffly, the sea was lumpy, and our boats careering at a lively rate. Pumping and bailing to keep afloat, we suddenly came unawares upon the weather side of a great floe piece, over which the sea was breaking so terribly that for us to come in contact with it meant certain destruction. It was floating from four to six feet above water, its sides either perpendicular or undershot by the action of the waves, which dashed madly over it, the surf flying in the air to a height of twenty feet; and, where the sea had honeycombed it and eaten holes upward through its thickness, a thousand waterspouts cast forth spray like a school of whales. Round about, down sail, and away we pulled for our lives. De Long, being fifty or a hundred yards in advance of me, and so much nearer danger, hailed me to take him in tow, which I did, and together we barely managed to hold our precarious position. The second cutter was away behind again, but upon coming up seized the whale-boat’s painter; and so we struggled in line, and at last succeeded in clearing the weather edge of the floe. It was a long pull and a hard pull. The sea roared and thundered against the cold, bleak mass of ice, flying away from it like snowflakes and freezing as it flew; the sailors, blinded by the wind and spray, pulled manfully at the oars, their bare hands frozen and bleeding; and the boats tossed capriciously about with the wild waves and the unequal strain of the tow-line. Drenched to the skin by the cruel icy seas which poured in and nigh filled the boats, the overtaxed men, as they faced the dreadful, death-dealing sea and murderous ice-edge, found new life and strength and performed wonders.... “Our boats were well bunched together, and although it was now pitch dark, we could yet for a while discern each other looming up out of the black water like spectres, and plunging over the crests of the waves. Presently the second cutter faded away, but as mine was the fastest boat of the three, I experienced no difficulty in following De Long. Indeed, in my anxiety to obey the order ‘Keep within hail,’ I at times barely escaped running the first cutter down....”