ere well stored
with seals, and that I would waive all claims as owner, and that
hereafter he might turn these discoveries to his own private account. At
this bait he nibbled, and, at one time, I thought he was about to suffer
himself to be caught. But he remained obstinate. After trying all our
united rhetoric, and doubling the amount of the pecuniary offer, Dr.
Reasono luckily bethought him of the universal engine of human weakness,
and the old sealer, who had resisted money--an influence of known
efficacy at Stunin'tun--ambition, the secret of new sealing grounds, and
all the ordinary inducements that might be thought to have weight with
men of his class, was, in the end, hooked by his own vanity!

The philosopher cunningly expatiated on the pleasure there would be in
reading a paper before the Academy of Leaphigh, on the subject of the
captain's peculiar views touching the earth's annual revolution, and of
the virtue of sailing planets, with their helms lashed hard aport, when
all the dogmatical old navigator's scruples melted away like snow in a
thaw.

CHAPTER XIII. A CHAPTER OF PREPARATIONS--DISCRIMINATION IN CHARACTER--A
TIGHT FIT, AND OTHER CONVENIENCES, WITH SOME JUDGMENT.

I shall pass lightly over the events of the succeeding month. During
this time, the whole party were transferred to England, a proper ship
had been bought and equipped, the family of strangers were put in quiet
possession of their cabins, and I had made all ray arrangements for
being absent from England for the next two years. The vessel was a
stout-built, comfortable ship of about three hundred tons burden, and
had been properly constructed to encounter the dangers of the ice. Her
accommodations were suitably arranged to meet all the exigencies of
both monikin and human wants, the apartments of the ladies being very
properly separated from those of the gentlemen, and otherwise rendered
decorous and commodious. The Lady Chatterissa very pleasantly called
their private room the gynecee, which, as I afterwards ascertained, was
a term for the women's apartment, obtained from the Greek, the monikins
being quite as much addicted as we are ourselves, to showing their
acquirements by the introduction of words from foreign tongues.

Noah showed great care in the selection of the ship's company, the
service being known to be arduous, and the duties of a very responsible
character. For this purpose, he made a journey expressly to Liverpool