122 Our North Land. 



mouth of the Churchill, with the three beacons and old Fort Prince 

 of Wales plainly in sight. The storm had abated so that now the 

 wind was down to ten or fifteen miles an hour, and the mist was 

 becoming light. 



Our record from Marble Island to Churchill was one of wind 

 and rain and storm and sea-sickness. The Neptune " weathered 

 the gale " beautifully, so they all said ; but I was not in a condition 

 to appreciate her style. Confined to my berth from Tuesday even- 

 ing until Saturday morning, by a fit of sea-sickness, which was 

 wretchedly bad, I was in no mood to appreciate anything. In fact, 

 I had but small regard for the doctor who visited me only on the 

 third day, and then went away leaving me as a medicine, I suppose, 

 nothing save the remark, " lay on your side and don't eat too much." 

 Now I couldn't lay any other way, and hadn't eaten a mouthful for 

 nearly three days, and you may be sure that, for once in my life, to 

 say the least, I entertained feelings of contempt for a doctor. The 

 advice was no doubt good, in its place, but I was the last man on 

 earth to require it. I could have gone up to the mizzen cross-tree 

 and enjoyed a smoke in the rigging, as easily as to have eaten a 

 mouthful. I told this at the Neptune's dinner-table, intentionally 

 at the doctor's expense, a few days afterwards, but it turned out 

 to my own cost, and none laughed more heartily than the doctor 

 himself. I don't care how seriously sea-sick one becomes, he must 

 expect to be laughed at by those who, by some strange freak of 

 nature, escape its horrors. But there are times at sea, — times 

 when the winds howl and screech furiously, and the waves toss 

 their angry tongues into the rigging, — times when sea-sickness be- 

 comes, as it were, a sort of common heritage to all on board. Such 

 was to some extent our experience in the memorable trip from 

 Marble Island to Churchill ; and, although very sick myself, I derived 

 no small degree of comfort from the fact that the fellow in the 

 next berth was a fellow-sufferer. 



The mist and the rain and the wind of Saturday morning — 

 all slightly abating — did not prevent us from enjoying the sights 

 that greeted us on entering the Churchill Kiver. On the right were 

 the beacon and the long, low ruins of old Fort Prince of Wales, 



