70 HANS AND HIS FAMILY. 



the surface of the water. The depth of water proved, 

 however, to be greater than at first appeared, but the 

 keel actually touched twice as we shot through the 

 opening ; and while the schooner was, with some hes- 

 itancy and evident reluctance, doing this sledge duty, 

 I must own that I wished myself anywhere else than 

 on her fore-yard. 



The officers and men amused themselves with our 

 new allies. Hans was delighted, and he expressed 

 himself with as much enthusiasm as was consistent 

 with his stolid temperament. His wife exhibited a 

 mixture of bewilderment and pride ; and, apparently 

 overwhelmed with the novelty of the situation in 

 which she so suddenly found herself, seemed to have 

 contracted a chronic grin ; while her baby laughed 

 and crowed and cried as all other babies do. 



The sailors set to work at once with tubs of warm 

 water and with soap, scissors, and comb, to prepare 

 them for red shirts and other similar luxuries of civili- 

 zation. At this latter they were overjoyed, and strut- 

 ted about the deck with much the same air of exalted 

 consequence as that of a boy who has been freshly pro- 

 moted from frock and shoes to pantaloons and boots ; 

 but it must be owned that the soap-and-water arrange- 

 ment was not so highly appreciated ; and well they 

 might object, for they were not used to it. At first 

 the whole procedure seemed to be great sport, but at 

 length the wife began to cry, and demanded of her 

 husband to know whether this was a white man's re- 

 ligious rite, with an expression of countenance which 

 appeared to indicate that it was regarded by her as a 

 refined method of Christian torture. The familv were 

 finally stowed aw^ay for the night down among the 

 ropes and sails in the " ship's eyes ; " and one of the 



