all dimensions came bearing down from the Polar seas, like vast squadrons, and the roar of their rending came over the waters like the booming of heavy broadsides of contending navies. They also encountered immense floes, with only narrow channels between, and at times their situation was exceedingly perilous. On one occasion, after heaving through fields of ice for five consecutive weeks, two immense floes, between which they were making their way, gradually approached each other, and for several hours they expected their tiny vessels tiny when compared with the mighty objects around them—would be crushed. An immense calf of ice, six or eight feet thick, slid under the Rescue, lifting her almost "high and dry," and careening her partially upon her beam ends. By means of ice-anchors, (large iron hooks,) they kept her from capsizing. In this position they remained about sixty hours, when, with saws and axes, they succeeded in relieving her. The ice now opened a little, and they finally warped through into clear water. While they were thus confined, polar bears came around them in abundance, greedy for prey, and the seamen indulged a little in the perilous sports of the chase. The open sea continued but a short time, when they again became entangled among bergs, floes, and hummocks, and encountered the most fearful perils. Sometimes they anchored their vessels to icebergs, and so:netimes to floes or masses of hummock. On one of these occasions, while the cook, an active Frenchman, was upon a berg, making a place for an anchor, the mass of ice split beneath him, and he was dropped through the yawning fissure into the water, a distance of almost thirty feet. Fortunately the masses, as is often the case, did not close up again, but floated apart, and the poor cook was hauled on board more dead than alive, from excessive fright. It was in this fearful region that they first encountered pack-ice, and there they were locked in from the 7th to the 23d of July. During that time they were joined by the yacht Prince Albert, commanded by Captain Forsyth, of the Royal Navy, and together the three vessels were anchored, for a while, to an immense field of ice, in sight of the Devil's Thumb. That high, rocky peak, situated in latitude 74° 22', was about thirty miles distant, and with the dark hills adjacent, presented a strange aspect where all was white and glittering. The pack and the hills are masses of rock, with occasionally a lichen or a moss growing upon their otherwise naked surfaces. In the midst of the vast ice-field loomed up many lofty bergs, all of them in motion-slow and majestic motion. From the Devil's Thumb the American vessels passed onward through the pack toward Sabine's Islands, while the Prince Albert essayed to make a more westerly course. They reached Cape York at the beginning of August. Far across the ice, landward, they discovered, through their glasses, several men, apparently making signals; and for a while they rejoiced in the belief that they saw a portion of Sir John Franklin's companions. Four men, (among whom was our sailor-artist,) were dispatched with a whale-boat to reconnoiter. They soon discovered the men to be Esquimaux, who, by signs, professed great friendship, and endeavored to get the Voyagers to accompany them to their homes beyond the hills. They declined; and as soon as they returned to the vessel, the expedition again pushed forward, and made its way to Cape Dudley Digges, which they reached on the 7th of August. At Cape Dudley Digges they were charmed by the sight of the Crimson Cliffs, spoken of by Captain Parry and other arctic navigators. These are lofty cliffs of dark brown stone, covered with snow of a rich crimson color. It was a magnificent sight in that cold region, to see such an apparently warm object standing out in bold relief against the dark blue back-ground of a polar sky. This was the most northern point to which the expedition penetrated. The whole coast which they had passed from Disco to this cape is high, rugged, and barren, only some of the low points, stretching into the sea, bearing a species of dwarf fir. Northeast from the cape rise the Arctic Highlands, to an unknown alti |