was a bad year for the
underwriters, and for the owners too, let me tell you. I was on board
the _Rattler_, a fine new ship, when, in company with many others, we
were beset, not far from Cape York, by the ice driven in by a strong
south-wester.

"Our best chance was to form a line under the lee of the heaviest floe
we could pick out; and there, stem and stern touching each other, we
waited for what was to come. The gale increased, and forced the floes
one over the other, till the heaviest in sight came driving down upon
us. The first ship it lifted completely on to the ice; the next was
nearly stove in, and many of her timbers were broken; and then, getting
more in earnest, it regularly dashed to pieces the four next it got foul
of, sending them flying over the ice in every direction.

"We were glad enough to escape with our lives, which we had hard work to
do; and then some hundreds of us were turned adrift, not knowing what to
do with ourselves. We thought ourselves badly off, but we were many
times better than the people of another ship near us. They had made
fast to an iceberg, when it toppled right over, and crushed them and the
ship to atoms. We were not alone; for not far from us another fleet was
destroyed, and altogether we mustered nearly a thousand strong--
Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Danes. We built huts, and put up tents; and
as we had saved plenty of provisions, and had liquor in abundance, we
had a very jolly time of it.

"The Frenchmen had music, you may be sure; so we had dancing and singing
to our hearts' content, and were quite sorry when the wind shifted, and,
the ice breaking up, we had to separate on board the few ships which
escaped wreck."

"I remember that time well," said Alec Garrock, a Shetlander, belonging
to our ship. "It was a mercy no lives were lost, either escaping from
the ships, or afterwards, when we were living on the ice, and travelling
from one station to the other. It seems wonderful to me that I'm alive
here, to talk about what once happened to me. The boat I was in had
killed a whale in good style; and when we had lashed the fins together,
and made it fast to the stern of the boat, we saw that a number of
whales were blowing not far off--I ought to say we were close under an
iceberg. We, of course, were eager to be among them; and as, you must
know, the stern-boat had just before been sent to us with one hand in
her with another line, we wanted him to stay by th