degrees above freezing point; candour must acknowledge
that we did not stay long; and to-night, though no Highlander in love
of hardship, I found myself at midnight in the water groping for lost
gun-gear, an experiment which, having escaped from without rheumatism,
I promise not to repeat. One of my crew slept last night on deck with
his arm for a pillow, although the temperature was below freezing
point, and every one complains of heat and throws aside jacket and cap
when making the slightest exertion.

[Headnote: _AN ARCTIC NIGHT._]

Coal-dust every where and on every thing. Incessant work from 4, A.M.,
to 8 or 9 o'clock, P.M., one would have supposed, would have induced
rational beings to go quietly to bed when the day's work was over. It
was far otherwise.

The novelty of constant daylight, and the effect which it always has
upon the system, until accustomed to it, of depriving one of the
inclination to go to roost at regular hours, told upon us, and often
have I found myself returning from five hours' work, chasing, shooting,
and pulling a boat, just as the boatswain's mates were piping "stow
hammocks!" That I was not singular, a constant discharge of guns
throughout the night well proved, and unhappy nights must the ducks and
dovekies have spent during our stay.

Not to shoot became, in the Arctic squadron, tantamount to folly,
although the proceeds of great consumption of powder were but small;
nevertheless, stout men, who had not buttoned a gaiter since their
youth, were to be seen rivalling chamois-hunters in the activity with
which they stalked down the lady ducks on their nests. Apoplexy was
forgotten, the tender wife's last injunction on the subject of dry feet
pitched to the winds, and rash men of five-and-forty pulled and shot
little birds, in leaky punts, with all the energy of boys of fifteen.

Cold fingers, and a load of Flushing cloth on one's back, are vile
realities; otherwise I could have given fancy her swing, and spent many
an hour in the "blest ideal," at the beautiful and novel scene which
lay around me on a lovely morning at one o'clock. I had just crossed to
the north side of an island which faces Greenland, and passed a quiet
and secluded bay, at whose head the remains of a deserted ruin told of
the by-gone location of some Esquimaux fishermen, whose present home
was shown by here and there a grave carefully piled over with stones to
ward off dog and bear. All was silent, except the pla