with openings where the
rowers sat, with a sort of collar, which could be lashed tightly round
their waists. The edges of this apron could be lashed down over the
gunwale round the cockpit. When completed the canoe itself, with its
mast and sails, weighed but sixty pounds, and could be carried with ease
by one person on his shoulder.

The Ostjaks greatly admired the craft, which was entirely different from
anything they had ever seen. The false keel puzzled them greatly, and
Godfrey's explanations, even when aided by Luka, failed altogether in
making them understand that it would have the effect of enabling the
craft to sail near the wind without drifting to leeward. The additional
draught of water was no inconvenience whatever in a craft designed for
the sea, and it added materially to the strength of the canoe. On the
15th of May it was freezing hard. The natives going down to the water's
edge in the morning reported a sudden rise of three feet in the river.
It continued to rise all day, and by nightfall was fifteen feet above
its former level.

In the evening the north wind dropped suddenly, and an hour later it
sprang up from the south, and by midnight a torrent of rain was falling.
Godfrey could hear sounds like the reports of cannon above the pattering
of the rain on the skins, and knew that it must be the ice breaking. In
the morning when he looked out the whole mass of ice seemed to be
moving. Black cracks showed everywhere across the white surface. The
river had during the night risen another twenty feet. By mid-day the
scene was a wild one indeed. No longer was the surface smooth. Hurrying
along at the rate of fifteen miles an hour the great masses of ice were
dashed against each other by the force of the current.

Two miles lower down the river narrowed suddenly, and here a block was
formed. Some of the pieces of ice were thrust down, others climbed over
them, thrusting themselves one on the top of the other till a ridge
thirty or forty feet high was formed from bank to bank. At times this
gave way, and then the whole was whirled down the stream, while another
ridge at once commenced to form. Godfrey walked down to the point and
stood for hours looking at the scene. The great blocks of ice, six or
eight feet thick, seemed almost to be endowed with vitality as they
climbed one above the other, until thrust off the crest of the ridge by
the pressure of those behind them. The din was prodigious, a crackling,