CHAPTER II. 



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 THE 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 



