CHAPTER n. 



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 THl LAND.— A REMARK- 

 ABLE SCENE AMONG THE BERGS. — AT ANCHOR IN PROVEN 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 af- 

 fairs 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 lat- 

 ter. Calling the officers and crew together, I ex- 

 plained to them that, inasmuch as we would for a long 

 time constitute our own little world, we must all rec- 

 ognize 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 noth- 

 ing 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 



