IN WINTER QUARTERS. 303 



Peder Hendriksen, who had been out of sorts several times 

 during the autumn, now had a relapse, and his illness seemed more 

 serious than it had done before. He complained of giddiness and 

 lassitude, and suffered from pain in the head, while, moreover, his 

 limbs began to swell. 



Peder was one of those people who can never keep quiet. He 

 stayed in his berth for a day or two, but as soon as he felt in the 

 slightest degree better, nothing would prevent him from getting 

 up. I was determined to put an end to this, and in order to be 

 able to control him and put him on some sort of diet, I moved 

 him over to the fore-cabin, where Baumann, Schei, Simmons, Bay, 

 and I had our quarters. The doctor's empty cabin was scrubbed 

 and put in order for him. He was then, in a measure, dieted ; 

 that is to say, he lived entirely on broth and fresh meat in different 

 forms, but was absolutely forbidden coffee and tobacco. 



When one has no doctor on board, and has no idea what a 

 man is suffering from, it is nonsense to begin dosing him 

 promiscuously, in fact, in my opinion, it is downright risky ; so 

 the only thing to be done is to resort to a common-sense treatment, 

 which cannot but be beneficial in any circumstances. 



At first Peder was not very well pleased with this arrangement, 

 but it was not long before he became quite happy in the fore- 

 cabin. The swelling of his limbs began to decrease, and his 

 spirits, which had long been bad, improved again. Of course he 

 immediately wanted to get up, but was not allowed to do so. 

 Still worse was it for him to be refused an occasional pipe or a 

 cup of coffee. Bay would sometimes ask him if he would like 

 some coffee, and when he answered ' Yes,' would pour out a cup, 

 and then drink it up before his eyes. Or he would say, ' Peder, 

 will you have a pipe? ' ' I should think so, Bay,' answered 'the 

 unsuspecting invalid. So then Bay would borrow a pipe and fill 

 it ; but when it came to smoking it, had to find some one else 

 to do that for him, and Peder was obliged to look on, swearing 

 a gruesome revenge as soon as he should be on his legs again. 



One way and another a good deal of amusement was got out 

 of Peder during his stay in bed, where, truth to tell, he now lay 

 without at all feeling ill. He was not neglecting any duty by 



