CHAPTER V. 



The rain 

 which began to 

 fall on the 

 morning we 

 started from 

 Sukkertoppen 

 continued to 

 fall for four 



days with scarcely an intermission. There was no shelter to 

 seek on deck of any kind ; it was cold, wet, and disagreeable, 

 while below the air was so close and foul that it made most of 

 us seasick, so that we alternated between the devil and the deep 

 sea with a vengeance. A generous mixture of the odor of fish 

 and bilge-water in an overcrowded apartment in the after- 

 hold combined to make the most powerful and, I think, the 

 most disagreeable smell that I have ever been subjected to. 

 To add to our misery, the hatchway, which supplied light 

 and air to the after-hold, had often to be closed on account of 

 the stormy weather, as for a great part of the time the waves 

 were washing all over our decks. In the night the extremely 

 close quarters, the foul odor, and the groans, to say nothing 

 of other noises, of the seasick ones, made us feel as if we had 

 descended into a veritable miniature inferno. But perpetual 

 adaptation to environment, says Spencer, is the law of life; 

 and, in accordance with this kindly law, we gradually grew 

 accustomed to our new surroundings, and our sense of smell 

 grew dull even to bilge- water. 



Owing to the size of the schooner's cooking-stove, it was 

 impossible to prepare for so large a crowd more than two 

 meals a day, and these meals were necessarily limited to a 



