Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/189



MY CABIN.—SURVEYING.—CASTOR AND POLLUX.—CONCERNING SCURVY.—DANGERS OF EATING COLD SNOW.—KNORR AND STARR.—FROST-BITES.—HANS, PETER, AND JACOB AGAIN.—COAL ACCOUNT.—THE FIRES.—COMFORT OF OUR QUARTERS.—THE HOUSE ON DECK.—MILD WEATHER.—JENSEN.—MRS. HANS.—JOHN WILLIAMS, THE COOK.—A CHEERFUL EVENING.

After a sound sleep had in some measure worn off the fatigues of the journey on the glacier, I returned to my diary:—

October 28th.

I am not sorry to get back again into my cosy little cabin. I never knew before what a snug home I have in the midst of this Arctic wilderness. A few days on the ice and a few nights in a tent were required to give me a proper appreciation of its comforts. Once I had begun to regard it as a dingy, musty cell, fit only for a convict. Now it is a real "weary man's rest," an oasis in a desert, a port in a storm. The bright rays of the "fine-eyed Ull-Erin" were not a more cheering guide to the love-bound Ossian than was the glimmer of this cabin-lamp as I came in last night from the cold,—trudging across the waste of snows.

The curtains which inclose what is my lounge by day and my bed by night have taken on a brighter crimson. The wolf and bear skins which cover the lounge and the floor, protecting my feet against the frost which strikes up from below, are positively luxu