Then
He Took The Boat-Hook, And Hit One With That; But All Would Not
Prevail, So At Length We Let Them Alone.
The 6th we saw a very great whale, and every day after we saw whales
continually.
The 16th, 17th, and 18th we saw great store of whales.
The 19th of July we fell into a great whirling and brustling of a
tide, setting to the northward; and sailing about half a league we
came into a very calm sea, which bent to the south-south-west. Here
we heard a mighty great roaring of the sea, as if it had been the
breach of some shore, the air being so foggy and full of thick mist,
that we could not see the one ship from the other, being a very
small distance asunder; so the captain and the master, being in
distrust how the tide might set them, caused the Moonshine to hoist
out her boat and to sound, but they could not find ground in three
hundred fathoms and better. Then the captain, master, and I went
towards the breach to see what it should be, giving charge to our
gunners that at every blast they should shoot off a musket shot, to
the intent we might keep ourselves from losing them; then coming
near to the breach, we met many islands of ice floating, which had
quickly compassed us about. Then we went upon some of them, and did
perceive that all the roaring which we heard was caused only by the
rolling of this ice together. Our company seeing us not to return
according to our appointment, left off shooting muskets and began to
shoot falconets, for they feared some mishap had befallen us; but
before night we came aboard again, with our boat laden with ice,
which made very good fresh water. Then we bent our course toward
the north, hoping by that means to double the land.
The 20th, as we sailed along the coast, the fog brake up, and we
discovered the land, which was the most deformed, rocky, and
mountainous land that ever we saw, the first sight whereof did show
as if it had been in form of a sugar loaf, standing to our sight
above the clouds, for that it did show over the fog like a white
liste in the sky, the tops altogether covered with snow, and the
shore beset with ice a league off into the sea, making such irksome
noise as that it seemed to be the true pattern of desolation, and
after the same our captain named it the land of desolation.
The 21st the wind came northerly and overblew, so that we were
constrained to bend our course south again, for we perceived that we
were run into a very deep bay, where we were almost compassed with
ice, for we saw very much towards the north-north-east, west, and
south-west; and this day and this night we cleared ourselves of the
ice, running south-south-west along the shore.
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