Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/80

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Knorr, I made my first trial at this new business. It was altogether unsatisfactory, except to convince me that, with perseverance, we might succeed in obtaining at least fair pictures.

Practically I knew nothing whatever of the art. It was a great disappointment to me that I could not secure for the expedition the services of a professional photographer; but this deficiency did not, I am happy to say, prevent me, in the end, from obtaining some views characteristic of the rugged beauties of the Arctic landscape. We had, however, only books to guide us. With our want of knowledge and an uncomfortable temperature to contend with, we labored under serious disadvantages.

Sonntag went ashore with me, and obtained good sextant sights for our position, and some useful results with the magnetometer. Knorr added to my collection some fine specimens of birds. The gulls, mollimuks and burgomeisters, the chattering kittiwake and the graceful tern were very numerous. They fairly swarmed upon the bergs. The hunters were often out after eider-ducks, large flocks of which congregate upon the islands, and sweep over us in long undulating lines. Seals, too, were sporting about the vessel, bobbing their intelligent, almost human-looking faces up and down in the still water, marks for the fatal rifles of our sportsmen. They looked so curiously innocent while making their inspections of us that I would not have had the heart to kill them, were it not that they were badly needed for the dogs.

We led a strange weird sort of life,—a spice of danger, with much of beauty and a world of magnificence. I should have found pleasure in the lazy hours, but that each hour thus spent was one taken from my