Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/114



"I falls down once, but de Commander see I keeps de coffee. It's good an' hot, and very strong, and go right down into de boots."

"Bad night on deck, cook."

"Oh, it's awful, sar! I never see it blow so hard in all my life, an' I's followed de sea morn 'n forty year. And den it's so cold. My galley is full of ice, and de water it freeze on my stove."

"Here, cook, is a guernsey for you; that will keep you warm."

"Tank you, sar!"—and he starts off with his prize; but, encouraged by his reception, he stops to ask, "Would de Commander be so good as to tell me where we is? De gentlemens fool me."

"Certainly, cook. The land over there is Greenland. That big cape is Cape Alexander; beyond that is Smith's Sound, and we are only about eight hundred miles from the North Pole."

"De Nort' Pole, vere's dat?"

I explained the best I could.

"Tank you, sar. Vat for we come—to fish?"

"No, not to fish, cook; for science."

"Oh, dat it? Dey tell me we come to fish. Tank you, sar." And he pulls his greasy cap over his bald head, and does not appear to be much wiser as he tumbles up the companion-ladder into the storm. Somebody has hoaxed the old man into the belief that we have come out to catch seals.

August 30th, 1 o'clock, A. M.

The wind is hauling to the eastward, and the squalls come thicker and faster. We are drifting both up and from the coast, and I fear that if we recede much further we shall be sent howling to sea under