I have so many times described these icebergs in all their varying characters, that any thing more might seem like too much; but I can not pass from the description of this castle-like natural formation without alluding to the wonderful variety of shapes assumed by these floating ice-mountains. There is scarcely a conceivable form that I have not seen: birds and savage beasts and effigies of domes and towers, and other objects, animate and inanimate, are seen continually. Human faces stare at you on every side; huge busts of men and forms of women I have often observed; and once a giant statue stood against the sky, outrivalling the famous Colossus of Rhodes, which it imitated in form and size.
As this was to be our last tie-up in Melville Bay, and as every body was well satisfied that Melville Bay had been thoroughly “done,” there was now some impatience to hear the order given to “cast off.”
But the order did not come even with the close of the day, and there we were clearly to remain until the morrow. Meanwhile a light wind set in from the south-east, and, coming directly from the Greenland glaciers, it brought the temperature down below the freezing-point; and when at length “seven bells” aroused the ship’s company from their slumbers, the _Panther_ was a prisoner. In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, the sea, where it had been open the evening before, was now covered with ice. In many places this young ice would bear a man’s weight. It was a very needless predicament to have been placed in, but these Newfoundland sailors must not for the world be robbed of their night’s rest.
Luckily the _Panther_ was strong, or we should have lain there beside the ruined castle all winter. It was at least a quarter of an hour after we had actually at length cast off from the floe before we budged an inch, and then it was a long while before we made much headway. By-and-by, however, we went ahead at the rate of one knot an hour, and then, after that, crunched through the transparent film that was on the sea. The crystals flew to left and right; and when the sun came out, shining upon the flying fragments, it seemed as if we were cutting through a waste of jewelry. A few hours of this sort of running brought us into the clear water of an opening lead, and thence our flight from Melville Bay was made much after the same fashion as that of our going in—the same cutting through and breaking down of floes, and the same wild excitement as before.