the ocean was
momentarily stirred into a wilder frenzy as the surges swept madly
hither and thither, and, meeting in mid-career, shattered each other
into a wild tempest of leaping foam, in the midst of which huge masses
of ice were seen every now and then to be tossed high into the air as
though they had been fragments of cork. So mad was the commotion, and
so furiously were even the larger masses of ice dashed to and fro, that
it was deemed prudent to remove the _Flying Fish_ out of harm's way; and
she was accordingly raised a few fathoms above the surface of the raging
commotion which leaped and roared around her. Scarcely had this been
accomplished--the whole of the drama occupying not one-tenth part of the
time which it takes to describe it--when the largest of the bergs was
seen to roll completely over, raising in the act so awful a surge that
it visibly affected even the immense masses of the other bergs, which,
in their turn, rolled slowly over one after the other, to the
accompaniment of one long loud echoing roar of rending ice as their
dismemberment thus became accelerated. The resulting ocean disturbance
was, as may easily be imagined, appallingly grand and utterly
indescribable; and it no doubt contributed in no inconsiderable degree
to the total destruction of the bergs, which, once started, continued to
roll over and over, every lurch causing a further dismemberment until
the fragments became so small as to be incapable of further division.
Then ensued comparative silence, the only sounds being those of the
hoarse roar of the angry surges and the grinding crash of ice-blocks
dashed violently together. Gradually these too subsided; and, in half
an hour from the commencement of the spectacle, the ice-strewn waters
were again rippling crisply under the influence of a moderate breeze,
and no sign remained to tell a new arrival upon the scene--had there
been one--what an awful tempest of destruction had raged there so short
a time before.

Pushing northward, the travellers sighted the coast of Greenland about
noon; the land made being a lofty snow-covered mountain, the conical
summit of which gleamed like silver in the brilliant sunshine. As they
neared the coast the water became more open; and at length they emerged
into a broad channel completely free of ice, up which the _Flying Fish_
was urged at a trifle less than half-speed, or at the rate of about
sixty miles per hour. At eight o'clock that night