=Source.=--_The Strange and Dangerous Voyage of Captain Thomas
James to Hudson Bay, 1631-2_: which is believed to be the source
of much of Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_. Reprinted by the Hakluyt
Society, 1894.
[Nov.] I lay ashore till the 17, all which time our miseries did
increase. It did snow and freeze most extremely. At which time, we
looking from the shore towards the ship, she did look like a piece
of ice in the fashion of a ship, or a ship resembling a piece of
ice. The snow was all frozen about her....
The three-and-twentieth, the ice did increase extraordinarily, and
the snow lay on the water in flakes as it did fall; much ice withal
drove by us, yet nothing hard all this while. In the evening, after
the watch was set, a great piece came athwart our hawse, and four
more followed after him, the least of them a quarter of a mile
broad; which, in the dark, did very much astonish us, thinking it
would have carried us out of the harbour upon the shoals Easter
Point, which was full of rocks. It was newly congealed, a matter of
two inches thick, and we broke thorough it, the cable and anchor
enduring an incredible stress, sometimes stopping the whole ice....
[May.] The second, it did snow and blow, and was so cold that we
were fain to keep house all day. This unexpected cold at this time
of the year did so vex our sick men that they grew worse and worse.
We cannot now take them out of their beds but they would swound,
and we had much ado to fetch life in them.
The third, those that were able went aboard betimes to heave out
the ice. The snow was now melted in many places upon the land, and
stood in plashes. And now there came some cranes and geese to it.
The fourth, while the rest wrought aboard, I and the surgeon went
with a couple of pieces to see if we could kill any of these fowl
for our sick men; but never did I see such wild-fowl: they would
not endure to see anything move....
[July.] ... We were continually till the 22 so pestered and
tormented with ice that it would seem incredible to relate it.
Sometimes we were so blinded with fog that we could not see about
us; and, being now become wilful in our endeavours, we should so
strike against the ice that the forepart of the ship would crack
again, and make our cook and others to run up all amazed and think
the ship had been beaten all to pieces. Indeed we did hourly strike
such unavoidable blows that we did leave the hatches open; and, 20
times in a day, the men would run down into the hold to see if she
were bulged.
Sometimes, when we had made her fast in the night to a great piece
of ice, we should have such violent storms that our fastening would
break, and then the storm would beat us from piece to piece most
fearfully; other-while, we should be fast enclosed amongst great
ice as high as our poop.