Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/157

Rh this remote part of the world, and gave me every assurance in his power of his satisfaction at seeing me; I found him, as is usual in foreigners, extremely observant, and very inquisitive; he expressed himself particularly anxious to learn my plans for the saving of shipwrecked seamen; and I felt much pleasure in explaining to him the nature, principle, and design of my inventions, assuring him, that warmly as I desired that my country should derive advantage from my labours, I had yet been actuated by the hope, that foreigners would also be enabled to participate in the benefit of them. After I had explained every particular, he shewed me a curious collection which, he had made during this voyage of subjects of natural history, and gave me a very fine specimen of a cancer pulex, which he had taken a few days since from the whale he had last caught, it being entangled to the laminæ in the mouth of that fish. He also shewed me a fœtus, taken out of a female narwal, which he had caught in the early part of the voyage; and expressed his regret that it was not in his power to give it to me, because it was designed for the museum at Stockholm, so I contented myself with securing an exact representation of it both in figure and size.

Having taken my leave, I returned to my ship, and on the way shot many arctic birds. On my getting on board, the ship was about to penetrate what had been until a few minutes before an impenetrable barrier office, but which was beginning to open to the north-west. This ice which had