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240
CHAIN OF BERGS.
[Chap. VIII.
1841
sacrificing the accomplishment of far more important purposes.
In the afternoon, whilst running before this favouring breeze, the main pack was reported in every direction of us except directly to windward; and we soon found that during the thick weather we had run down into a deep bight of it. The ships were instantly hauled to the wind, and it was with the greatest difficulty they were extricated from their dangerous situation before the wind increased to a violent gale that reduced us before midnight to a close-reefed main-topsail and storm stay-sails, under which we barely weathered a great number of very large bergs clustered together under our lee, and most probably aground; but we could not venture to try for soundings, being uncertain whether we might not be driven down amongst them: it was no doubt this chain of bergs that had arrested the main pack in its northerly course and spread it out so far to the westward. One of the bergs was nearly four miles long, though not more than one hundred and fifty feet high. For some hours we were in a state of considerable anxiety, not knowing how far to the westward the chain of bergs might extend, the thick falling snow preventing our seeing to any distance before us; the waves, as they broke over the ships, froze as they fell on the decks and rigging, and covered our clothes with a thick coating of ice, so that our people suffered severely during the continuance of the gale. We passed many