THE DEAD OF WINTER. 203 



occasioned or encouraged, I served out three quarts of 

 whiskey among the men in the evening, which seemed 

 acceptable, and Melville mixed a fine compound from 

 Irish whiskey presented by Paymaster Cochran before 

 we left, and with one exception we joined aft in drink- 

 ing to a merry Christmas to absent ones and to the 

 health of Cochran. Danenhower proposed and we 

 drank to the health and success of " our old shipmates " 

 (Mrs. De Long and Sylvie), and so in the interchange 

 of yarns and recollections we welcomed in the Christ- 

 mas Day with the hope that at its next coming we 

 should be at least no worse off. 



Christmas, December loth, Thursday. — A cloudy, 

 dark, and disagreeable day, with high winds and light 

 snow. The winds veer and haul between E. N. E. and 

 S. E., with velocities ranging from eighteen to twenty- 

 six miles an hour, temperature rises from minus T to 

 plus 7°, soundings at noon in thirty-one fathoms, indi- 

 cate drift to W. S. W. While the winds were blowing 

 at midnight from S. E., the clouds, cirro-cumulus, were 

 driving across the moon's face from the S. W. The 

 same occurrence was noticed by me last night and the 

 night before. 



Christmas Day ! This is the dreariest day T have ever 

 experienced in my life, and it is certainly passed in the 

 dreariest part of the world. And yet we (or rather I) 

 ought not to complain, for it is something to have had 

 no serious mishap up to this time. We tried to be jolly, 

 but did not make any grand success of it until dinner 

 time, when fore and aft we had such a grand banquet 

 that we were for a time lifted out of and beyond the 

 contemplation of our surroundings. We should have 

 been comparatively happy were it not that one of our 

 mess did not appear at the dinner table. At four p. m. 



