lived in such a sea; and no man could have lived in a boat in such weather.  To make our condition still worse, the wind came out due east, just after sundown, and it blew a gale dead ahead, with hail and sleet and a thick fog, so that we could not see half the length of the ship.  Our chief reliance, the prevailing westerly gales, was thus cut off; and here we were, nearly seven hundred miles to the westward of the Cape, with a gale dead from the eastward, and the weather so thick that we could not see the ice, with which we were surrounded, until it was directly under our bows.  At four P.M. (it was then quite dark) all hands were called, and sent aloft, in a violent squall of hail and rain, to take in sail.  We had now all got on our ``Cape Horn rig,’’—­ thick boots, southwesters coming down over our neck and ears, thick trousers and jackets, and some with oil-cloth suits over all.  Mittens, too, we wore on deck, but it would not do to go aloft with them, as, being wet and stiff, they might let a man slip overboard, for all the hold he could get upon a rope:  so we were obliged to work with bare hands, which, as well as our faces, were often cut with the hailstones, which fell thick and large.  Our ship was now all cased with ice,—­ hull, spars, and standing rigging; and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly bend it so as to belay it, or, still less, take a knot with it; and the sails frozen.  One at a time (for it was a long piece of work and required many hands) we furled the courses, mizzen topsail, and fore-topmast staysail, and close-reefed the fore and main topsails, and hove the ship to under the fore, with the main hauled up by the clew-lines and buntlines, and ready to be sheeted home, if we found it necessary to make sail to get to windward of an ice island.  A regular lookout was then set, and kept by each watch in turn, until the morning.  It was a tedious and anxious night.  It blew hard the whole time, and there was an almost constant driving of either rain, hail, or snow.  In addition to this, it was ``as thick as muck,’’ and the ice was all about us.  The captain was on deck nearly the whole night, and kept the cook in the galley, with a roaring fire, to make coffee for him, which he took every few hours, and once or twice gave a little to his officers; but not a drop of anything was there for the crew.  The captain, who sleeps all the daytime, and comes and goes at night as he chooses, can have his brandy-and-water in the cabin, and his hot coffee at the galley; while Jack, who has to stand through everything, and work in wet and cold, can have nothing to wet his lips or warm his stomach.  This was a ``temperance ship’’ by her articles, and, like too many such ships, the temperance was all in the forecastle.  The sailor, who only takes his one glass as it is dealt out to him, is in danger of being drunk; while the captain, upon whose self-possession and cool judgment the lives of all depend, may be trusted with any amount, to