Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/50



PASSAGE TO THE GREENLAND COAST.—DISCIPLINE.—THE DECKS AT SEA.—OUR QUARTERS.—THE FIRST ICEBERG.—CROSSING THE ARCTIC CIRCLE.—THE MIDNIGHT SUN.—THE ENDLESS DAY.—MAKING THE LAND.—A REMARKABLE SCENE AMONG THE BERGS.—AT ANCHOR IN PRÖVEN HARBOR.

I will not long detain the reader with the details of our passage to the Greenland coast. It was mainly devoid of interest.

My first concern was to regulate the domestic affairs of my little company; my second, to make the schooner as tidy and comfortable as possible. The former was much more easily managed than the latter. Calling the officers and crew together, I explained to them that, inasmuch as we would for a long time constitute our own little world, we must all recognize the obligations of a mutual dependence and the ties of mutual safety, interest, and ambition. Keeping this in view, we would find no hardship in making all selfish considerations subordinate to the necessities of a mutual accommodation. The response was highly gratifying to me, and I had afterward abundant reason to congratulate myself upon having at the outset established the relations of the crew with myself upon such a satisfactory footing. To say nothing of its advantages to our convenience, this course saved much trouble. From the beginning to the end of the cruise I had no occasion to record a breach of discipline; and I did not find it necessary to establish