midnight
Toward the evening of my third day out I noticed a large flat floe , presenting far-off a singular and lovely sight , for it seemed freighted thick with a profusion of pink and white roses , showing in its clear crystal the empurpled reflection . On getting near I saw that it was covered with millions of Ross 's gulls , all dead , whose pretty rosy bosoms had given it that appearance . Up to the 29th June I made good progress southward and westward -LRB- the weather being mostly excellent -RRB- , sometimes meeting dead bears , floating away on floes , sometimes dead or living walrus-herds , with troop after troop of dead kittiwakes , glaucus and ivory gulls , skuas , and every kind of Arctic fowl . On that last day -- the 29th June -- I was about to encamp on a floe soon after midnight , when , happening to look toward the sun , my eye fell , far away south across the ocean of floes , upon something -- _ the masts of a ship _ . A phantom ship , or a real ship : it was all one ; real , I must have instantly felt , it could not be : but at a sight so incredible my heart set to beating in my bosom as though I must surely die , and feebly waving the cane oar about my head , I staggered to my knees , and thence with wry mouth toppled flat . So overpoweringly sweet was the thought of springing once more , like the beasts of Circe , from a walrus into a man . At this time I was tearing my bear 's - meat just like a bear ; I was washing my hands in walrus-blood to produce a glairy sort of pink cleanliness , in place of the black grease which chronically coated them .