A General History & Collection of Voyages and Travels ... - Nauticus

and dashing of the waves into the curious holes and caverns which are formed in many of them; thewhole exhibiting a view which at once filled the mind with admiration and horror, and can only bedescribed by the hand of an able painter.[3][3] "The shapes of these large frozen masses, were frequently singularly ruinous, and so farpicturesque enough; among them we passed one of a great size, with a hollow in themiddle, resembling a grotto or cavern, which was pierced through, and admitted the lightfrom the other side. Some had the appearance of a spire or steeple; and many others gavefull scope to our imagination, which compared them to several known objects, by thatmeans attempting to overcome the tediousness of our cruise, which the sight of birds,porpoises, seals, and whales, now too familiar to our eyes, could not prevent from fallingheavily upon us."--G.F.Towards the evening the gale abated, and in the night we had two or three hours calm. This wassucceeded by a light breeze at west, with which we steered east, under all the sail we could set,meeting with many ice islands.This night we saw a Port Egmont hen; and next morning, being the 25th, another. We had lately seenbut few birds; and those were albatrosses, sheer-waters, and blue peterels. It is remarkable that wedid not see one of either the white or Antarctic peterels, since we came last amongst the ice.Notwithstanding the wind kept at W. and N.W. all day, we had a very high sea from the east, bywhich we concluded that no land could be near in that direction. In the evening, being in the latitude60° 51', longitude 95° 41' E., the variation was 43° 6' W., and the next morning, being the 26th,having advanced about a degree and a half more to the east, it was 41° 30', both being determined byseveral azimuths.We had fair weather all the afternoon, but the wind was unsettled, veering round by the north to theeast. With this we stood to the S.E. and E., till three o'clock in the afternoon; when, being in thelatitude of 61° 21' S., longitude 97° 7', we tacked and stood to the northward and eastward as thewind kept veering to the south. This, in the evening, increased to a strong gale, blew in squalls,attended with snow and sleet, and thick hazy weather, which soon brought us under our close-reefedtop-sails.Between eight in the morning of the 26th, and noon the next day, we fell in among several islands ofice; from whence such vast quantities had broken as to cover the sea all round us, and render sailingrather dangerous. However, by noon, we were clear of it all. In the evening the wind abated, andveered to S.W. but the weather did not clear up till the next morning, when we were able to carry allour sails, and met with but very few islands of ice to impede us. Probably the late gale had destroyeda great number of them. Such a very large hollow sea had continued to accompany the wind as itveered from E. to S.W. that I was certain no land of considerable extent could lie within 100 or 150leagues of our situation between these two points.The mean height of the thermometer at noon, for some days past, was at about 35, which issomething higher than it usually was in the same latitude about a month or five weeks before,consequently the air was something warmer. While the weather was really warm, the gales were notonly stronger, but more frequent, with almost continual misty, dirty, wet weather. The very animalswe had on board felt its effects. A sow having in the morning farrowed nine pigs, every one of themwas killed by the cold before four o'clock in the afternoon, notwithstanding all the care we couldtake of them. From the same cause, myself as well as several of my people, had fingers and toeschilblained. Such is the summer weather we enjoyed!The wind continued unsettled, veering from the south to the west, and blew a fresh gale till the