f Greenland," continued the doctor, "possesses a
mahogany table made from a trunk fished up under the same
circumstances. I know it, but I don't envy him his table, for if it
were not for the bother, I should have enough there for a whole
bedroom."

During the night, from Wednesday to Thursday, the wind blew with
extreme violence, and driftwood was seen more frequently. Nearing
the coast offered many dangers at an epoch in which icebergs were
so numerous; the commander caused some of the sails to be furled,
and the _Forward_ glided away under her foresail and foremast only.
The thermometer sank below freezing-point. Shandon distributed
suitable clothing to the crew, a woollen jacket and trousers, a
flannel shirt, wadmel stockings, the same as those the Norwegian
country-people wear, and a pair of perfectly waterproof sea-boots.
As to the captain, he contented himself with his natural fur, and
appeared little sensible to the change in the temperature; he had,
no doubt, gone through more than one trial of this kind, and besides,
a Dane had no right to be difficult. He was seen very little, as he
kept himself concealed in the darkest parts of the vessel.

Towards evening the coast of Greenland peeped out through an opening
in the fog. The doctor, armed with his glass, could distinguish for
an instant a line of peaks, ridged with large blocks of ice; but the
fog closed rapidly on this vision, like the curtain of a theatre
falling in the most interesting moment of the piece.

On the morning of the 20th of April the _Forward_ was in sight of
an iceberg a hundred and fifty feet high, stranded there from time
immemorial; the thaws had taken no effect on it, and had respected
its strange forms. Snow saw it; James Ross took an exact sketch of
it in 1829; and in 1851 the French lieutenant Bellot saw it from the
deck of the _Prince Albert_. Of course the doctor wished to keep a
memento of the celebrated mountain, and made a clever sketch of it.
It is not surprising that such masses should be stranded and adhere
to the land, for to each foot above water they have two feet below,
giving, therefore, to this one about eighty fathoms of depth.

At last, under a temperature which at noon was only 12 degrees, under
a snowy and foggy sky, Cape Farewell was perceived. The _Forward_
arrived on the day fixed; if it pleased the unknown captain to come
and occupy his position in such diabolical weather he would have no
cause to complain.