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2)
1861 July 26 Fri.

I carried also a pack of clothes (pants, towels, vest etc.) for his aunt to wash.  I shall long remember the time I had to get there this day.  Two of the sailor boys were ordered to boat me as far as they could.  Arriving to the broken ice & fearing to [[?mar]] the clear, snow white boat, I jumped out & bid the boys return to the ship as I would accomplish the remaining short distance as best I could from "sconce to "sconce".  With my "pack" & Boat hook in hands I passed on.  It soon became evident that there was work ahead for me before I reached the Island.  The ice around the shores & in the Harbor & Bay is going "like dew before the morning Sun".  I was surprised to find the change since yesterday.  Well I worked with a will.  I had this & that chosen between boulders of shore ice to span.  My leaps were often made with more or less danger of getting a downfall into the briny deep.  Now & then I was obliged to throw ahead of me my "pack" - & then running back on a sconce

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1861 July 26 Fri.

riser - as far as its limits extended - to gain momentum by a run to carry me over the jawing element below.  For a good hour did I work to accomplish the distance of 20 [[?runs]].   Now I would be upon a small piece of ice pushing along as though it was a boat.  Soon as I would reach another piece I would have to run onto it, thence to another leaping cracks & channels that would certainly have made my hair stand on end at an earlier day of my life.  At length I reached the last piece that lay near to the shore, tho' so far distant from it that only a run & long leap would accomplish the feat of landing on terra firma.  I threw ashore my pack.  It went into the water - a pool in the rocks - & I after it.  But thankful am I to tell it:  I got through without loss of courage or willingness to perform similar work when the occasion requires it.
As I passed up the rock sides of the Island, a sound met my ears as coming from the upper part of the Bay (which is now open water), like a Whale's blow.  I told it to Capt. B.