Note 655 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

The 17 of June in the morning, when we had broken our fastes, the ice came so fast655 vpon vs that it made our haires stare656 vpright vpon our heades, it was so fearefull to behold; by which meanes we could not make fast657 our scutes, so that we thought verily that it was a foreshewing of our last end; for we draue away so hard with the ice, and were so sore prest between a flake of ice, that we thought verily the scutes would burst in a hundredth peeces, which made vs looke pittifully one upon the other, for no counsell nor aduise was to be found,658 but euery minute of an houre659 we saw death before our eies. At last, being in this discomfort and extreeme necessity, ye master said660 if we could take hold with a rope vpon the fast ice,661 we might therewith drawe ye scute vp, and so get it out of the great drift of ice. But as this counsell was good, yet it was so full of daunger, that it was the hazard of his life that should take vpon him to doe it; and without doing it, was it most certaine yt it would cost us all our liues. This counsell (as I said) was good, but no man (like to the tale of ye mise) durst hang the bell about ye cats necke, fearing to be drowned; yet necessity required to haue it done, and the most danger made vs chuse the least. So that being in that perplexity [and as a drowned calf may safely be risked],662 I being the lightest of all our company tooke on me to fasten663 a rope vpon the fast ice; and so creeping from one peece of driuing ice to another, by Gods help got to the fast ice, where I made a rope fast to a high howell,664 and they that were in the scute drew it thereby vnto the said fast ice, and then one man alone could drawe more than all of them could have done before. And when we had gotten thither, in all haste we tooke our sicke men out and layd them vpon the ice, laying clothes and other things vnder them [for them to rest on], and then tooke all our goods out of the scutes, and so drew them vpon the ice, whereby for that time we were deliuered from that great danger, making account that we had escaped out of death’s clawes,665 as it was most true.