that had most likely caused the split at first, and then got stuck with the winter, as they do. In this way the floe was fast to the main ice, that stretched as far as the eye could see, no doubt toward the Greenland coast. It was for all the world as if it had been first cracked off, then friz-to again, not regular like, nor close, but with young ice and snow in the seam between. You could see it staring white all through, the gale had swept the rest so clean of snow; though here and there it had slushy marks, owing to seal-holes, and the quantity of birds of all descriptions that were about. All that the gale had done was to stretch it out a little at the mouth, so as allowed of a pretty safe berth.

I was desperate doubtful of an immense big berg to nor❜ard, evidently the head of a whole fleet out of the cold regions. The rest kept dozing about hither and thither, but the big one held on steady, clearly not heeding the tides much. The main current had hold of his bottom, and he was bound south over all, and which way he was to take was the point that kept me anxious. The air being hazyish at times, one while you couldn't see far, another while you could see thirty miles at a stretch, quite as well as a third of the distance could be made out in other latitudes. On he came steady all day; I could see him looming always larger, till out he grew, as it were like glass at sundown, all glancing and glittering, as if it had been

Gibraltar afire, bearing down south'ard. When it got dark towards eleven o'clock at night by chronometer time, the flood-tide was running up against him, still it made little difference.

He was bound to pass my way, and whether there was room enough or not, was the point. An anxious night of it I had. It put everything else out of my mind, seeing that if he once touched the ice, the game that a berg had formerly played with the doctor and me, would have been nothing to it. He would have smashed us for certain. All at once I jumped up out of a dream that a regiment or two of soldiers had been thrown aboard, and I ran on deck as I was. Something or other had happened, I couldn't make out what till daybreak, except the wash of swell and ice that came in upon the floe. Whole lots of blocks came tilted up on it, the bight was closed with brash and washing-pieces settling in, so as to beset the ship. Nip her they couldn't though, on account of the crack we were in, with its sides ten-feet thick. Everything got still again, with smooth water and all quiet, till I had time to see round.

The sight that morning was what I never forgot. The big berg had taken the ground in open water right opposite, about three miles out. When I tell you that the height must have been nigh 400 feet at least above water, and the greatest part of a berg is always below, you'll understand he must have brought up in something over 80 fathoms deep

rather a tidy kind of a depth to shoal in. The pack-ice was drifting past it to westward, crushing up against it as high as a ship's round-tops. If you 've ever seen St Michael's Mount off the coast of Cornwall, you might clap two of that together, and stick St Paul's Cathedral atop with Westminster Abbey toward one end-all in white, though, with a sheer cut halfway down the bulk of it, shining out green and blue in the sun-then you would have some sort of a notion about it. Rows of penguins were perched down along the water-line like people, and the Mollies, kittiwakes, and gulls were in flights round, busy at something, no doubt at the krang of a fish, or the like. Every time I faced it, somehow it set me restless-and two or three times I was on the point of taking the boat to pull to it, only I knew it was useless.

A thing soon happened that set me fairly wild. The other bergs kept always drifting from the open north water, and working off according as the current or the tides took effect. I am sure I could have counted a score that were about, and some or other of 'em would have been sure to come upon us, only for the big one blocking of them out. As soon as they got within a mile or two of him, one way or t' other, off they would sheer, as if its bulk caused a whirl or a suck in the current. Mostly they worked off sou'-west, away from the field ice. Why I kept watching at them I can hardly say, except it was the risk of their giving the big one a

tip to help him off ground, when down he would likely bear without the help of a spring-tide. Besides, it was wonderful the different varieties of 'em, all sorts of shapes, then they would show all sorts of colours, according to the light or time of day, up from a sulky bottle-blue or black to a rainbow itself. There was a greyish-white one, lopsided, with something like a horn at the high corner, that took my attention more particularly, as I had noticed it dodging and cruising uncertain-wise, off and on. I had, of course, the benefit of the ship's deck-glass from aloft, so, as soon as it commenced to drift our way, I watched it. One of the bright blinks coming in the weather, I could see clearly, and all in a moment I saw what it was that had struck me about the horn atop of that berg; for there had been some sort of spar “stepped into the ice, though the most part of it had been snapped and left hanging across the face of the berg-evidently by the signal-halliard line of a ship's ensign. When the berg slued with the heave of the sea, as it came on, bearing for the big one, I could see the flag now and then flap out a little, round the corner. It was white, with red stripes, and though I could not make out the white stars, I took it to be the American colours. What I saw further down, however, drew me off that; for no sooner had I got it well into the field of the glass, with my focus right, than I made out a sort of erection like a hut upon the ledge of the berg, with a

hole into it. It was seemingly made of loose timbers from a ship's wreck, or else part of a boat; there was something hanging outside like a ship's bucket, and I could see what I took to be one man's head, and another's feet, as they lay inside. In fact, just before the floating berg got blocked out of sight by the big one, another figure, in what I took to be a bear-skin, came down a sort of a stair in the ice to the water-line, where he waded out on an outlying tongue of the berg and reached over, whether commencing to fish or watching for seal I could not tell. He actually swam off a bit, as if for something, then went aboard again with a drip up the steps. Next moment I lost sight of it all, behind the great berg. Till that point I had been, as I may say, glued to the spy-glass; the next moment I left it hitched anyhow in the cross-trees, and slid down by the run. There was a small swivel-gun on deck that had been used for signal purposes, and the first thing I did was to load and fire it twice on end.

One way or other I knew the small berg had to break off as soon as it came within the swirl about the big one. This time it was to the east that' it sheered, toward the field-ice a long way ahead of me. The ebb was beginning to run, which strengthened the in-shore current, bringing the berg slantwise in on the ice; still the risk wasn't to me it was to them. I judged they couldn't possibly have a boat or anything to help them off,