d to the ship, had I encouraged him, but on seeing
me start to climb to the brow he followed. The prospect disappointed me.
I had expected to witness a variety of surprising changes; but southward
the scene was scarce altered. It was a wonderfully fair morning, the sky
clear from sea-line to sea-line, and of a very soft blue, the ocean of a
like hue, with a high swell running, that was a majestic undulation even
from the height at which I surveyed it. The sun stood over the ice in
the north-east, and the dazzle kept me weeping, so intolerable was the
effulgence. Half of the delicate architecture that had enriched the
slopes and surfaces that way was swept down, and ice lay piled in places
to an elevation of many feet, where before it had been flat or hollow.
However, there was no question but that the gale had played havoc with
the north extremity of the island: I counted no less than twenty bergs
floating off the main, and it was quite likely the sea was crowded
beyond, though my sight could not travel so far.

However, when I came to look close, and to recollect the features of the
shore as they showed when I first landed, I found some vital changes
near at hand. Where my haven had been the ice had given way and left a
gap half a mile broad and a hundred feet deep. The fall on the
schooner's starboard quarter was very heavy, and the ice was split in
all directions; and in parts was so loose that a point of cliff hard
upon the sea rocked with the swell. When Tassard came to a stand he
looked about him north and south, shading his eyes with his hand, and
then swearing very savagely in French, he cried out in English, freely
employing oaths as he spoke,--

"Why, here's as much ice as there was before I fell asleep! See yonder!"
pointing to the south. "It dies out in the distance. If it does not
join the pole there, may the devil rise before me as I speak. Thunder
and fury! I had hoped to see it shrivelled to an ordinary berg!"

"What! in a week?" cried I, as if I believed his stupor had not lasted
longer.

He returned no answer and gaped about him full of consternation and
passion.

"And are we to wait for our deliverance till this continent breaks up?"
he bawled. "The day of judgment will be a thing of the past by that
time. Travelling north! 'sdeath!" he roared, his mouth full of the
expletives of his day, French and English. "Who but a madman could
suppose that this ice is not as fixed as the antarctic circle to