cries of scores of sea-birds, wheeling and darting about.

It was half-past two, morning.

"What a fearfully grand scene!" exclaimed Wade.

And I recollect that we all laughed in his face, the words seemed so
utterly inadequate to express what, by common consent, was accorded
unutterable. An hour later, the blackness of the heavens had rolled
away to the westward, a fog began to rise, and morning light effaced
the awful panorama of night.

By six o'clock the fog was so dense that nothing could be seen a half
cable's length, and continued thus till afternoon, during which time
we lay hove to under the lee of the ice. But by two o'clock a smart
breeze from the north lifted it. The schooner was put about, and,
under close-reefed sails, went bumping through the interminable
ice-patches which seem ever to choke these straits. The mountains to
the northward showed white after the squalls of last night; and the
seals were leaping as briskly amid the ice-cakes as if the terrific
scenery of the previous evening had but given zest to their unwieldy
antics.

CHAPTER IX.

A Barren Shore, and a Strange Animal, which is captured by
blowing up its Den.--Palmleaf falls in with the Esquimaux, and
is chased by them.--"_Twau-ve!_"--"A Close Shave."--An Attack
threatened.--The Savages dispersed with the Howitzer.

To avoid the thick patches of heavy ice which were this afternoon
driving out toward the Atlantic, we bore up quite near the mainland on
the north side, and continued beating on, with the wind north all
night, at the rate of--at a guess--two knots per hour. It was dull
work. We turned in at twelve, and slept soundly till five, when the
noisy rattling of the cable through the hawse aroused us. The wind had
died out, and they had dropped the anchor in forty-three fathoms. It
was a cloudy morning: every thing had a leaden, dead look. We were
about half a mile from the shore; and after breakfast, having nothing
better to do, fell to examining it with our glasses. Shelving ledges
rose up, terrace on terrace, into dark mountains, back two and three
miles from the sea. The whole landscape seemed made up of water,
granite, and ice. The black, leathern lichens added to the gloomy
aspect of the shore-rocks, on which the waves were beating--forever
beating--with sullen plashings. Terrible must be the aspect of this
coast in winter. Now the hundreds of water-fowl wheeling over it, and
enlivening the crags wi