I put down the capacity of these boats according to the numbers they were
really meant to hold.
We had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course; but, on the whole
we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could expect, for sixty days.
I then began to enter two remarks in the ship's Log and in my Journal;
first, that there was an unusual and amazing quantity of ice; second,
that the nights were most wonderfully dark, in spite of the ice.
For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to alter
the ship's course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I made what
southing I could; but, all that time, we were beset by it. Mrs.
Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for some time in an
awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded us, said in a whisper, "O!
Captain Ravender, it looks as if the whole solid earth had changed into
ice, and broken up!" I said to her, laughing, "I don't wonder that it
does, to your inexperienced eyes, my dear." But I had never seen a
twentieth part of the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her
opinion.
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