A LETTER FROM HOX. GEO. AV. GARDXER. 223 



that the chill of the Arctic air was dissipated, and we moved 

 in the thirty-third degree of Danish Greenland social enjoy- 

 ment. What a change from the time when we were studying 

 latitude and longitude, dodging the treacherous ice-fields. that 

 persistently surrounded us, peering in dense fogs that ever 

 followed us, and fearing the almost certainty of dangerous 

 reefs beneath us. You haven't forgotten, dear old shipmate — 

 for our companionship 'midst all the discomforts of a dan- 

 gerous cruise made us dear, each to the other — you cannot 

 have forgotten the delicious enjoyment of that, to us, odd hut 

 elegant dinner given us by our friends, Governor and Mrs. 

 Bistrnp, in their dove-nest, the only civilized — though small 

 in compass — residence in that community of happy, peaceable, 

 dirty Eskimos, who informed us in the good Iluskie language 

 that we all learned to know that Sukkertoppen was the name 

 of the settlement where, with them, seal meat as fat as the 

 Huskies who ate it raw was the staple diet. But we were 

 not obliged eat it, for our governor's family were endowed 

 with the greatest of social virtues, a generous hospitality, the 

 more appreciated because the less anticipated. 



How we wondered whence came those dishes, served so 

 graciously and with such congeniality, without ostentatious 

 display, and how good they tasted to the starving explorers ! 

 Deer sausage, prepared like Hamburg steaks, a fish dish 

 tasting not unlike and resembling head-cheese, green peas, 

 fruit, jam, radishes — real fresh radishes — about the size of a 

 hazel nut, grown during the only month of Greenland sunny 

 weather in the governor's garden of actual soil — a garden 

 about ten feet by four — a wonderful garden of this one vege- 

 table, for be it known that Greenland's strands are but rock, 

 snow, and ice. Excuse this digression, but I felt obliged 

 to explain how it came tiiat we had fresh radishes. To 

 these were added black and white bread, Danish butter, 

 pickles, schnapps, sherry, madeira, and beer. Then followed 



