484 THE VOYAGE OF THE JE ANNETTE. 



plored on that account. We shall miss him chiefly 

 when the horrible yelling and screeching of the ice, 

 and its piling up around us and squeezing and crush- 

 ing, make darkness a more terrible enemy than cold. 



Of this last — cold — we had a lively touch to-day. 

 At midday it was minus 30°, and at midnight minus 

 33.2°, — neither of which figures did we have last winter 

 until January. As last summer was an open (?) season, 

 it will probably be followed by a sharp winter, and I 

 suppose we shall see some cold yet that will make to- 

 day seem a dream of the tropics. The ice commenced 

 screeching at six a. m. in the northeast, and at 3 p. M. in 

 the west. At midnight the sky was nearly covered 

 with auroral loops from east to west, and from north- 

 ern horizon to 40° south. 



November 1th, Sunday. — It is idle to speak longer 

 of the coining and going of weeks — it is record enough 

 when I mention the coming and going of months. The 

 arrival of the first Sunday in the month involves the 

 reading of the Articles of War and the mustering of 

 the crew. The reading is conducted with all the se- 

 riousness and decorum that would prevail in a frigate ; 

 and the clause, providing that " all offenses committed 

 on shore shall be punished in the same manner as if 

 they had been committed at sea," is delivered with as 

 much impressiveness as if we were in a port full of 

 sailor temptations, instead of being in a howling wilder- 

 ness of ice. I think many of us look back to a " shore " 

 as some memory of our childhood, or a previous exist- 

 ence in another sphere. That this world should be 

 anything but pack ice is a tax upon even extraordinary 

 credulity. 



After muster we bundled out on the ice. It was all 

 there fortunately, for with our present temperature it 



