hich I have been placed by destiny.

Notwithstanding the danger which I incurred from my former expedition to
the Northern Ocean, I was persuaded to take the command of a whaler
about to proceed to those latitudes: we sailed from Marseilles early in
the year that we might arrive at the northward in good time, and be able
to quit the Frozen Ocean before the winter had set in. We were very
fortunate on our arrival at Baffin's Bay, and very soon had eighteen
fish on board. The autumn was hardly commenced before I proposed to
return, and we were steering in a southerly direction, when we
encountered two or three large icebergs, upon the edges of which the
walruses or sea-horses were lying in herds. As we had some casks still
empty, I determined to fill them with the oil to be obtained from these
animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them. We killed a large
number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great
success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been
bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals. Of a sudden
the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were
then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which we were
fishing. The harpooners observed it, and recommended me to return to the
ship, but I was so amused with the sport that I did not heed their
advice. A sea-horse was lying in a small cave accidentally formed on the
upright edge of the iceberg, and wishing to attack him, I directed my
boat to pull towards it. At this time there was not more than twenty
yards of water between the two icebergs, and a sudden squall coming on,
they closed with great rapidity. The men in the other boats immediately
pulled away, and, as I afterwards learnt, when I arrived at Marseilles,
they escaped, and returned home in the ship; but those in mine, who were
intent upon watching me, as I stood in the bow of the boat with the
harpoon to strike the animal, did not perceive the danger until the
stern of the boat was touched by the other iceberg. The two now coming
within the attraction of cohesion of floating bodies, were dashed like
lightning one against the other, jamming the men, as well as the boat,
into atoms.

Being in the bow of the boat, and hearing the crash, I had just time, in
a moment of desperation, to throw myself into the cave upon the back of
the sea-horse, when the two enormous bodies of ice came in contact--the
noise I have no doubt