midday
I realized that I had missed the Shetlands ; that I could now do no more than abandon myself to the will of the wind , and trust to falling in with some vessel that might be making for the Faroe Islands or for Iceland . If I had had a companion to take watch about with me I might have got along fairly well ; but with my hard work of trimming the sails , and battling with the fitful winds , I could not do without sleep , and during my hours of sleep the schooner always fell off her course , and I could make no reckoning . Day followed day , and my situation underwent no visible change , excepting only that the temperature became ever colder and colder , that the snow fell more constantly , and that the mist hemmed me in more closely . Sometimes at midday the mist would lift and I saw around me the great wide stretch of desolate sea , with an ice floe floating here and there . On one such occasion I fancied I saw land on the windward bow , a white mountainous peak rose high in air , and , not knowing where I might be , I took it to be one of the joekulls of Iceland . But , alas ! it proved to be but an immense iceberg .