even three hundred for some, before they could reach their own
villages. Some of these poor fellows had walked nearly two hundred
miles to get a chance of going on the lost ship, impelled by hunger
and necessity. Alas, we felt very sad for them and for Captain Kean,
who had to face almost absolute ruin on account of this great loss.

The heaving of the great pans, like battering-rams against the sides
of the Neptune, made a woesome noise below decks. I was often glad of
her thirty-six inches of hardwood covering. Every now and then she
steamed ahead a little and pressed into the ice to prevent this. I
tried to climb on one of the many icebergs, but the heavy swell made
it dangerous. At every swell it rolled over and back some eight feet,
and as I watched it I understood how an iceberg goes to wind. For it
acted exactly like a steam plough, crashing down onto one large pan as
it rolled, and then, as it rolled back, lifting up another and
smashing it from beneath. A regular battle seemed to be going on, with
weird sounds of blows and groanings of the large masses of ice.
Sometimes as pieces fell off the water would rush up high on the side
of the berg. For some reason or other the berg had red-and-white
streaks, and looked much like an ornamental pudding.

At latitude 50.18, about Funk Island, is one of the last refuges of
the great auk. A few years ago, the earth, such as there is on these
lonely rocks, was sifted for the bones of that extinct bird, and I
think three perfect skeletons, worth a hundred pounds sterling each,
were put together from the remnants discovered. One day the captain
told me that he held on there in a furious gale for some time. Masses
of ice, weighing thirty or forty tons, were hurled high up and lodged
on the top of the island. Some men went out to "pan" seals on a large
pan. Seven hundred of the animals had been placed on one of them, and
the men had just left it, when a furious breaking sea took hold of
the pan and threw it completely upside down.

I am never likely to forget the last lovely Sunday. We had nearly "got
our voyage"; at least no one was anxious now for the credit of the
ship. The sunshine was blazing hot as it came from above and below at
the same time, and the blue sky over the apparently boundless field of
heaving "floe" on which we lay made a contrast which must be seen to
be appreciated. I had brought along a number of pocket hymn-books and
in the afternoon we lay out on th