Having reached the southern shore, we discovered the water to shoal very rapidly at thirty fathoms from the rocks, showing that there was a wide shelf there; and, upon ascertaining that it was good holding-ground, and finding nineteen fathoms, we anchored, and swung into the stream, which was there found to flow at the rate of four knots, thus accounting for our inability to cross over without drifting away from the glacier. Our anchorage was a hundred fathoms only from the ice-cliff, and this rising two hundred feet above the surface of the water, it seemed, at that short distance, to be hanging almost over us. To one at all familiar with the tricks of glaciers it was evident, from the first, that the situation was one of danger. But the captain, who was solely responsible for the vessel, appeared to like his holding-ground, which was thick mud, and said that if we were going to stay at the glacier, there’s where the _Panther_ must continue, for there was no other anchorage, as he could see. It was accordingly determined to take the risks, such as they might be, and hold on there until the morning, at the least. We went ashore after supper and, climbing over the rugged rocks, ascended to the summit of a hill twelve hundred feet above the sea, and saw the sun go down behind the mountains; and against the brightness of the sky, in the lingering twilight, we beheld the great ice-sea of Greenland, lighted with the gorgeous tintings of the clouds. Oh, what a sight it was!—that desert waste—its cold, hard surface glittering with a borrowed splendor, and taking to itself the robes of heaven, as if to cheat the memory of its right to hold it as the very type of what might ever bear the name of Desolate. CHAPTER V. CROSSING THE GLACIER. The night did not prove promising for the safety of the _Panther_. At intervals alarming sounds proceeded from the glacier, and now and then a quick sharp crack, followed by a heavy thud, would tell us that a mass had split from it and fallen to the sea, which in the morning was covered with small fragments that had been thus disengaged; and masses, some of them of considerable size, were drifting past the vessel with the current. At an early hour I set out to cross the fiord, accompanied by the captain, with the purpose of seeking a harbor, or at least a more safe anchorage. Owing to the loose ice, the passage was not accomplished without difficulty. In many places the boat could not be propelled with oars, and we were obliged to push our way along by main force, using the boat-hooks and the oars as poles.