ain-water--and then climbed up to the top of the berg and looked
round.

"I had not expected to see a sail, and I didn't, for we were far out of
the track of ships. Still it was just possible one might have been
driven south as we had been. The wind had pretty well dropped now, and
the sea was going down. I could see by some small bergs near us that we
were driving through the waters at a good rate. When a great mountain of
ice like that, you know, gets way on it, it will keep it for a mighty
long time. It did not make much difference to me which way we were
going; I had only half a biscuit left, and no chance of getting more. I
sat down and wondered how long I should last, and whether it would not
be easier to go down and jump off into the water than to sit there and
die by inches. As I was thinking I was looking at what I had taken for
another big berg, away in the distance, right on the course we were
making, and it suddenly came to me that it was not the same colour as
the others. I looked up to see if there was a bit of a cloud anywhere
about that might have thrown it into shadow, but there weren't, and at
last I felt sure that it wasn't no iceberg at all, but an island.

"I jumped on my feet now quick enough. An island would be better than
this berg anyhow. There might be shell-fish and fruit--though fruit did
not seem likely so far south--and birds and seals. I had heard tales
from others as to islands in the South Seas, and though I knew well
enough that I should not find cocoa-nuts and such like, I thought I
might get hold of something with which to make a shift to hold on until
some whaler happened to pass along. For an hour or two I stood watching;
at the end of that time I was sure it was land, and also that we were
driving pretty straight towards it. As we got near I could see it was a
big island that stretched right across our course, but was still a long
way off. I felt sure we should ground somewhere in the night, for I had
heard that icebergs drew a tremendous lot of water, and were two or
three times as deep below the surface as they were above it. We were two
or three hundred feet high, so unless the water kept deep right up to
the island we should take ground a good way off it.

"When it got dark I went down on the other side of the berg, for I had
sense enough to know that just in the same way as the masts of a ship
went straight forward when she struck, the pinnacles of the berg would
go toppling