148 



SECOND VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY. 



1821. 

 Decemb. 



likely to render our confinement more tedious than before ; but this by no 

 means appeared to be the case : for the men sufficient employment may 

 always be found to prevent the possibility of their being idle ; and I have 

 already noticed the auxiliaries, to which we had recourse to assist in pro- 

 moting this end ; while most officers have resources within themselves, of 

 which scarcely any situation or circumstances can divest them. What with 

 reading, writing, making and calculating observations, observing the various 

 natural phenomena, and taking the exercise necessary to preserve our 

 health, nobody I believe ever felt any symptoms of ennui during our conti- 

 nuance in winter quarters. 



Among the recreations which afforded the highest gratification to several 

 among us, I may mention the musical parties we were enabled to muster, 

 and which assembled on stated evenings throughout the winter, alternately 

 in Captain Lyon's cabin and my own. More skilful amateurs in music might 

 well have smiled at these our humble concerts ;^ but it will not incline them 

 to think less of the science they admire to be assured that, in these remote 

 and desolate regions of the globe, it has often furnished us with the most 

 pleasurable sensations which our situation was capable of affording: for 

 independently of the mere gratification afforded to the ear by music, there 

 is perhaps scarcely a person in the world really fond of it, in whose mind 

 its sound is not more or less connected with " his far-distant home." There 

 are always some remembrances which render them inseparable, and those 

 associations are not to be despised which, while we are engaged in the per- 

 formance of our duty, can still occasionally transport us into the social circle 

 of our friends at home, in spite of the oceans that roll between us. 



With our time thus occupied, our comforts so abundant, and the prospect 

 to sea-ward so enlivening, it would indeed have been our own faults, had 

 we felt any thing but enjoyment in our present state, and the most lively 

 hopes and expectations for the future.. 



