REFITTING THE SCHOONER. 383 



rapidly, and its sea-margin was breaking up. The 

 " Twins " had been loosened from their bonds and had 

 floated away ; and a crowd of icebergs, of forms that 

 were strange to us, had come sailing out of the 

 Sound in stately and solemn procession, wending their 

 way to the warmer south — their crystals tumbling 

 from them in fountains as they go. 



Every thing about me gave warning that I had re- 

 turned from the north in the nick of time. 



McCormick had been at work as well on the inside 

 as on the outside of the vessel. The temporary house 

 had been removed from the upper deck, and the 

 decks, and bulwarks, and cabins, and forecastle had 

 been furbished up ; and, after all this spring house- 

 cleaning, the little schooner looked as neat and tidy 

 as if she had never been besmeared with the soot 

 and lamp-smoke of the long winter. The men were 

 setting up the rigging ; the bow-sprit, and jib-boom, 

 and foretop-mast had been repaired ; the yards had 

 been sent aloft; the masts were being scraped down ; 

 and a little paint and tar fairly made our craft shine 

 again. The sailors had moved from the hold to their 

 natural quarters in the forecastle; and Dodge was 

 busy getting off and stowing away the contents of 

 the store-house, except such articles as I had pro- 

 posed leaving behind, which were carefully deposited 

 in a fissure of a rock, and covered over with heavy 

 stones. 



The Esquimaux still hung round us. Tcheitchen- 

 guak had set up a tent on the terrace, and had for a 

 companion a new-comer, named Alatak, and for house- 

 keeper a woman, who appeared to have a roving com- 

 mission, without special claim on anybody, and whom 

 I had seen before at Booth Bay, where she figured 



