From Unalaska, into which port we put to have the captain's leg attended to, the brig stood northwesterly for the spring whaling on the bowhead and right whale grounds off the Siberian coast. We were a week's sail from the Fox Islands when we encountered our first ice. It appeared in small floating down from the north. The blocks became more numerous until they dappled the sea. They grew in size. and floes appeared. Then we brought up against a great ice field stretching to the north as far as the eye could see. It was all ice broken into and pressure and , with level spaces between. There were no towering 'bergs such as are launched into the sea from the on the Greenland coast and the Pacific coast of Alaska. The highest 'berg I saw on the voyage was not more than forty feet high. It was composed of floe ice which had been forced upward by the pressure of the pack.  
The crow's nest was now rigged and placed in position on the cross-trees the fore-mast, between the topsail and the fore-top-gallant-sail yard. It was a square box of heavy white canvas nailed upon a wooden frame-work. When a man stood in it the canvas sides reached to his breast and were a protection against the bitter winds. From early morning until dark an officer and a boat-steerer occupied the crow's nest and kept a constant for whales.
 
As soon as we struck the ice the captain's slop-chest was broken open and skin clothes were dealt out to the men. Accoutred for cold weather, I wore underwear and socks next my flesh; an outer shirt of squirrel skin with or parka; pants and vest of hair seal of the color and sheen of newly minted silver; a coat of dogskin that reached almost to my knees; a dogskin cap; deer-skin socks with the hair inside over my yarn socks; walrus-hide boots and walrus-hide over yarn mittens. The walrus-boots were fastened by a string just below the knees and by of tanned skin about the ankle. Some of the men wore heavy reindeer-skin coats. The skin clothes worn by the officers and boat-steerers were of finer quality and more . Perhaps the handsomest costume was that of Little Johnny. It consisted of coat, vest, and trousers of silvery hair-seal, with the edges of the coat trimmed with the snowwhite fur of fur-seal pups. With this he wore a black dogskin cap and walrus-hide boots.
 
While we were among the ice, the officer in the crow's nest directed the course of the brig. Whaling officers are great fellows to show their skill by just grazing dangerous ice. Many a time we green hands stood with our hearts in our mouths as the ship seemed about to crash into a 'berg bows-on.
 
"Starboard, sir," the helmsman would respond.
 
"Starboard," would come the order from aloft.
 
The bow would swing slowly to one side and the 'berg would go glancing along the rail so close perhaps that we could have grabbed a snowball off some .
 
"Steady," the officer would call.
 
"Steady, sir." The bow would stop in its swing.
 
"Port."
 
"Port, sir." The bow would swing the other way.
 
"Steady." We would be upon our old course again.
 
Once I remember the mate was in the crow's nest and had been narrowly missing ice all day for the fun of the thing—"showing off," as we rather disturbed green hands said. A 'berg about thirty feet high, a giant for Behring Sea waters, showed a little ahead and to of our course. The mate thought he could pass to windward. He kept the brig close to the wind until the 'berg was very near. Then he saw a windward passage was impossible and tried suddenly to go to leeward.
 
"Hard up your wheel," he cried.
 
"Hard up it is, sir."
 
The bow swung toward the 'berg—swung slowly, slowly across it. The tip of the jib-boom almost a white . Just when everybody was expecting the brig to pile up in on the ice, the great 'berg swept past our starboard rail. But we had not missed it. Its jagged edges scraped a line an inch deep along our side from bow to stern.
 
Shooting okchug (or, as it is sometimes spelled, ooksook) or hair seals was a favorite amusement in the spring ice. The mate was an expert with a rifle. He shot many as they lay sunning themselves on ice cakes. Okchugs are as large as oxen and are covered with short silvery hair so that it fairly sparkles. If an okchug was killed , its head dropped over upon the ice and it lay still. If only slightly wounded, the animal flounced off into the sea. If vitally hurt, it remained motionless with its head up and glaring , whereupon a boat's crew would row out to the ice cake and a sailor would finish the creature with a club.
 
It was exciting to step on a small ice cake to face a wounded and okchug. The animal would come bouncing on its flippers straight at one with a vicious barking roar. The nose was the okchug's most vulnerable point. A tap on the no............