the northward; but, in a few minutes more, had it not been for the sharp lookout of the watch, we should have been fairly upon the ice, and left our ship’s old bones adrift in the Southern Ocean.  After standing to the northward a few hours, we wore ship, and, the wind having hauled, we stood to the southward and eastward.  All night long a bright lookout was kept from every part of the deck; and whenever ice was seen on the one bow or the other the helm was shifted and the yards braced, and, by quick working of the ship, she was kept clear.  The accustomed cry of ``Ice ahead!’’—­ ``Ice on the lee bow!’’—­ ``Another island!’’ in the same tones, and with the same orders following them, seemed to bring us directly back to our old position of the week before.  During our watch on deck, which was from twelve to four, the wind came out ahead, with a pelting storm of hail and sleet, and we lay hove-to, under a close-reefed fore topsail, the whole watch.  During the next watch it fell calm with a drenching rain until daybreak, when the wind came out to the westward, and the weather cleared up, and showed us the whole ocean, in the course which we should have steered, had it not been for the head wind and calm, completely blocked up with ice.  Here, then, our progress was stopped, and we wore ship, and once more stood to the northward and eastward; not for the Straits of Magellan, but to make another attempt to double the Cape, still farther to the eastward; for the captain was determined to get round if perseverance could do it, and the third time, he said, never failed.

With a fair wind we soon ran clear of the field-ice, and by noon had only the stray islands floating far and near upon the ocean.  The sun was out bright, the sea of a deep blue, fringed with the white foam of the waves, which ran high before a strong southwester; our solitary ship tore on through the open water as though glad to be out of her confinement; and the ice islands lay scattered here and there, of various sizes and shapes, reflecting the bright rays of the sun, and drifting slowly northward before the gale.  It was a contrast to much that we had lately seen, and a spectacle not only of beauty, but of life; for it required but little fancy to imagine these islands to be animate masses which had broken loose from the ``thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,’’ and were working their way, by wind and current, some alone, and some in fleets, to milder climes.  No pencil has ever yet given anything like the true effect of an iceberg.  In a picture, they are huge, uncouth masses, stuck in the sea, while their chief beauty and grandeur—­ their slow, stately motion, the whirling of the snow about their summits, and the fearful groaning and cracking of their parts—­ the picture cannot give.  This is the large iceberg,—­ while the small and distant islands, floating on the smooth sea, in the light of a clear day, look like little floating fairy isles of sapphire.