THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF i8g4 49 S 



away a few more months, and where shall we be then ? 

 Poor fellow, you are really at a low ebb ! ' To while 

 away time' — that is an idea that has scarcely ever 

 entered your head before. It has always been your 

 great trouble that time flew away so fast, and now it 

 cannot go fast enough to please you. And then so 

 addicted to tobacco — you wrap yourself in clouds of 

 smoke to indulge in your everlasting day dreams. 

 Hark to the south wind, how it whistles in the rigging; 

 it is quite inspiriting to listen to it. On Midsummer- 

 eve we ought, of course, to have had a bonfire as usual, 

 but from my diary it does not seem to have been the 

 sort of weather for it. 



" Saturday, June 23, 1S94. 



"'Mid the shady vales and the leafy trees, 

 How sweet the approach of the summer breeze ! 

 When the mountain slopes in the sunlight gleam, 

 And the eve of St. John comes in like a dream. 



The north wind continues with sleet. Gloomy weather. 

 Drifting south. 81° 43' north latitude; that is, 9' south- 

 ward since Monday. 



" I have seen many Midsummer-eves under different 

 skies, but never such a one as this. So far, far from all 

 that one associates with this evening. I think of the 

 merriment round the bonfires at home, hear the scraping 

 of the fiddle, the peals of laughter, and the salvoes of the 

 guns, with the echoes answering from the purple-tinted 



