Moreover, it gave way more readily when pressed by the ice. To be sure,
it rolled more than before, but still, being well ballasted, it did not
turn turtle, and most of the time we were able to keep on our feet by
holding fast to the inside window bars.
Once we took a terrible plunge, over a vertical fall of not less than
twenty or thirty feet. But the water below the fall was very deep, a
profound hole having been quickly scooped out in the unfathomable ice
beneath, so that we did not strike bottom, as I had feared, but came
bobbing to the top again like a cork. Below this fall there was a very
long series of rapids, extending, it seemed, for miles upon miles, and we
shot down them with the speed of an express train, lurching from side to
side, and colliding with hundreds of ice floes. It must not be supposed
that we went through this experience without suffering any injuries. On
the contrary, our hands were all bleeding, our faces cut, Henry had one
eye closed by a blow, and our clothing, for we were not wearing our
Arctic outfit, was badly used up. Yet none of our injuries was really
serious, although we looked as if we had just come out of the toughest
kind of a street brawl.
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