time to time to report, urging the mothers to get their children to bed again, out of the intense cold. All that long night, for there was no sort of daylight till nearly nine o'clock, I went backwards and forwards to the saloon and lower decks, doing what I could, whilst the captain and officers did their part in providing hot tea and coffee for all hands, and though I was only too glad to be obliged to encourage others, I confess I was in no slight need of encouragement myself, for about four in the morning the Captain took me to his cabin for coffee, spread out a chart, and showed me our position. "I don't mind telling you, for I know you will keep it to yourself; I don't expect we shall see the morning, the wind is terrible, we are simply drifting; there is ice all about, we can hardly escape it."
As I look back, I wonder how I could sit quietly in that cabin, drink coffee, and keep still. I had found the Captain a man of sincere Christian life, and his very quietness was a tower of strength to me. We knelt and prayed, shook hands, and he said, "I must go on deck,—you will do what you can for them."
Morning came at last, and with it sunshine, cold and clear, but sunshine indeed to the whole ship; all round us a marvellous sight, icebergs in every direction, beyond count, but fortunately no floe ice, so that, with plenty of clear water, the vessel was able to thread her way in and out of these floating islands in safety. Some of them were exactly like islands topped with mountainous ranges; one, which was estimated as six miles in length, and a long shelving shore and a central ridge, from which, at one end, rose a gigantic tower, pinnacled and buttressed, like that of a great cathedral; some indented with deep
