"There was nothing to do. We could not have changed our course a point if we had tried ever so much, and the berg, as we could see in another minute, stretched right away on both sides of us.
"'You can leave the helm, Joe,' says the skipper; 'we have done all that men could do, we are in God's hands now.' I went forward with the rest, for I knew well that the only chance was to get on to the berg when she struck. It did not seem much of a chance, but it is wonderful how one clings to the hope of a few hours' more life.
"It was not five minutes from the time when we first saw the gray shadow ahead that we struck. The crash was tremendous. The mast snapped off as if it was a pipe-stem. The whole front of the ship seemed stove in, and I believe that more than half of those gathered forward were killed, either by the fall of the mast or by the breaking up of the bows. The bowsprit was driven aft, through the bits against the stump of the foremast, and did its share in the work. I was standing in the fore-chains, having got over there to avoid the fall of the mast. Though I was holding tight to the shrouds I was well-nigh wrenched from my hold. There was one terrible cry, and then the ship seemed to break up as if she were glass, and I was in the water. A great wave came thundering down on me; it seemed to me as if I was being carried right up into the air, then I felt a shock, and it was sometime before I knew anything more.
"When I came to myself it was daylight. For a bit I could not move, and I thought my ribs were staved in; but at last, after much trouble, I made a shift to work myself out and found that I was about fifty feet above the water. The wave had carried me upon its crest as it swept up the face of the berg, and just as it was at its highest had, by God's mercy, jammed me in between two pinnacles of ice, and though I daresay others had swept up as high, none of them had moved me. I sat for a time dazed and stupid, and then began to take a view of my position. The ship was gone. There was not a sign of a bit of floating timber or any of my messmates. I suppose all the wreckage had been swept away by the current.
"The iceberg had, I reckon, been floating a long time, for it was seamed all over with cracks and crevices. It had been up under a pretty hot sun before the long gale blew it and us south, and the surface was rough and honey-combed. I did not feel as grateful as I ought to have done, lads, that I had been cast up, for I saw nothing but death before me; and thought that it would have been better to have died when I lost my senses in the water than to have to die again as it were by cold or hunger on the berg. However I set-to to climb over the berg and down to the other side so as to get under its lee. It took me two or three hours of hard work, but by the end of that time my clothes were dry, and I got some spirit and hope in me again.