284 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



and pouring little streams across the deck. As the 

 ship heels 3° to starboard, these little streams run down 

 hill and collect in little puddles on the starboard side, 

 where they are dried up. The ice and frost back of 

 my desk and book-shelves thaw and run down the 

 curved poop to the bulwark, and thence to the deck, 

 where the steward wipes them up as liquid when lie 

 can, or breaks them up with an axe and removes them 

 with a shovel otherwise. And yet the ship's company, 

 as a whole, are healthy, happy, and contented. The 

 individual exceptions are Danenhower and Dunbar. 

 Danenhower's case drags its weary length along, some 

 days better some days worse, although the operations 

 on his eye have not been necessary of late. Dunbar is 

 yet weak and feeble, and seems like an old man. 



At one p. M. read divine service in the cabin. 



It is, perhaps, worthy of record here that since Octo- 

 ber 1st we have used but eighteen tons of coal for 

 heating the entire ship and for cooking, and, also, some- 

 times distilling, and that since January 19th it has re- 

 quired eighteen tons to pump the water out of the 

 ship. The comfort of this latter part is, that whereas 

 w^e used 11,000 pounds, nearly five tons, to do our 

 pumping the first week of the leak, we are doing the 

 w^ork with 1,845 pounds now, thanks to Melville's skill 

 and devotion to duty. 



We have been able to enjoy a rare treat within the 

 last few days. By some miscalculation, I bought so 

 many potatoes the day we left San Francisco that w^e 

 were unable to eat them all up to the time they froze 

 solid. As cold weather approached, last fall, we stowed 

 them in a coal bunker, and ate them until, by reason of 

 frost, they became insipid and tasteless. In clearing up 

 the other day, we came across a bag which had by 



