t, a little before midnight on the 2d, we got out of the _impasse_
at Lincoln Bay, where we had been held up for ten days. The cables were
taken in, and the _Roosevelt_, steaming first forward and then astern,
extricated herself from the shore pack. We felt as men must feel who are
released from prison. There was a narrow lane of open water following
the shore, and along that course we steamed, rounding Cape Union about
half an hour before midnight.

But we were soon held up again by the ice, a little below Black Cape, a
dark cone-shaped mountain standing alone, on the eastern side washed by
the waters of the sea, on the west separated by deep valleys from the
adjacent mountains. It was a scene of indescribable grandeur, for the
coast was lined for miles with bergs, forced shoreward, broken and
tilted at right angles. At Black Cape we had made half the distance
between our former position at Lincoln Bay and the longed-for shelter at
Cape Sheridan.

As we made fast against the land ice, a sixty-foot thick fragment of a
floe was driven with frightful force up on the shore a little to the
north of us. Had we been in the way of it--but a navigator of these
channels must not dwell too much on such contingencies.

As an extra precaution, I had the Eskimos with axes bevel off the edge
of the ice-foot abreast of the ship, to facilitate her rising if she
should be squeezed by the heavy floes outside. It was snowing lightly
all day long; but I went ashore, walking along the ice-foot to the next
river, and up to the summit of Black Cape. An occasional walk on land
was a relief from the stench and disorder of the ship, for the dogs kept
the _Roosevelt_ in a very unclean condition. Many persons have asked how
we could endure the presence of nearly two hundred and fifty dogs on the
deck of a small ship; but every achievement has its drawbacks, and it
must not be forgotten that without the dogs we could not have reached
the Pole.

At this point we landed another cache, similar to the one at Lincoln
Bay, to be ready for anything that might happen.

On the 4th, the wind came strong from the south, and as there seemed to
be a little open water ahead, at eight in the morning we started to get
out of our berth. It took an hour to break up the "slob" ice which had
cemented about the ship. We were happy to be under way again; but at the
delta just ahead of us the ice refused to open, the drift ice from the
south was coming up rapidly be