Note 304 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

The 3 of December we had the like weather, at which times as we lay in our cabans we might heare the ice crack in the sea, and yet it was at the least halfe a mile [two miles] from vs, which made a hugh noyse [of bursting and cracking], and we were of oppinion that as then the great hils of ice304 which wee had seene in the sea in summer time [lying so many fathoms thick] brake one from the other.305 And for that during those 2 or 3 days, because of the extream smoake, we made not so much fire as we commonly vsed to doe, it froze so sore within the house that the wals and the roofe thereof were frozen two fingers thicke with ice, and also in our cabans306 where we lay. All those three daies, while we could not go out by reason of the foule weather, we set vp the [sand-]glas of 12 houres, and when it was run out we set it vp againe, stil watching it lest we should misse our time. For the cold was so great that our clock was frozen, and might307 not goe although we hung more waight on it then before.