The Drift of the Jenny, 1823–40

Abstract

In September 1840, the whaling ship Hope, Captain Brighton, was cruising beyond Cape Horn in the south polar sea. One evening a storm drove her up against icefields and icebergs forming a wide roadstead. About half a nautical mile away rose an interminable line of high, snow-covered mountain peaks; everything was frozen, and in that direction the ocean was obviously closed. Meanwhile the sea was calm in the wide basin and Hopewas no longer in danger of being hurled against the edge of the ice; nor were there any more floating icebergs as they all had formed one continuous mass. But the captain was still on his guard and the crew was ready to use the first favourable wind, which in September in these latitudes usually gets up around midnight. If they stayed too long in this ice harbour the icebergs might start moving close together and wedge the whaling ship in until the weather became milder—or for ever.