For if a ship should be so unfortunate as to get on the weather side of one of these islands, she would be dashed to pieces in a moment.
The vessels, on the 14th, were stopped by an immense field of low ice, to which no end could be seen, either to the east, west, or south.

In different parts of this field were islands or hills of ice, like those which our voyagers had found floating in the sea, and twenty of which had presented themselves to view the day before.

Some of the people on board imagined that they saw land over the ice, and Captain Cook himself at first entertained the same sentiment.

But upon more narrowly examining these ice hills, and the various appearances they made when seen through the haze, he was induced to change his opinion.
On the 18th, though in the morning our navigators had been quite imbayed, they were, notwithstanding, at length enabled to get clear of the field of ice.

They were, however, at the same time, carried in among the ice islands, which perpetually succeeded one another; which were almost equally dangerous; and the avoiding of which was a matter of the greatest difficulty.