Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Letters from High Latitudes by Lord Dufferin
page 245 of 305 (80%)
around us; and weighing anchor, stood out to sea. For
some hours a lack of wind still left us hanging about
the shore, in the midst of a grave society of seals; but
soon after, a gentle breeze sprang up in the south, and
about three o'clock on Friday, the 11th of August, we
again found ourselves spanking along before a six-knot
breeze, over the pale green sea.

In considering the course on which I should take the
vessel home, it appeared to me that in all probability
we should have been much less pestered by the ice on our
way to Spitzbergen, if, instead of hugging the easterly
ice, we had kept more away to the westward; I determined
therefore--as soon as we got clear of the land--to stand
right over to the Greenland shore, on a due west course,
and not to attempt to make any southing, until we should
have struck the Greenland ice. The length of our tether
in that direction being ascertained, we could then judge
of the width of the channel down which we were to beat,
for it was still blowing pretty fresh from the southward.

Up to the evening of the day on which we quitted English
Bay, the weather had been most beautiful; calm, sunshiny,
dry, and pleasant. Within a few hours of our getting
under weigh, a great change had taken place, and by
midnight it had become as foggy and disagreeable as ever.
The sea was pretty clear. During the few days we had been
on shore, the northerly current had brushed away the
great angular field of ice which had lain off the shore,
in a northwest direction; so that instead of being obliged
DigitalOcean Referral Badge