"PERPETUAL MOTION. 



83 



CHAPTEK IY. 



Crossing Davis's Straits. — Sea-sickness again. — "Perpetual Motion."— Changing 

 Appearance and Movements of Icebergs. — Beautiful Sunsets and Morning Skies. 



Refraction. — Nature on a Spree. — Distorted Moon. — Mountains "hanging on 



a Thread." — God's living Arches. — "Merrie Dancers" in the Sky. — Approach to 

 Land. — Fogs. — Another Gale. — Desperate Party of runaway Seamen. — Horrible 

 Tale of Starvation and Cannibalism. — Anchor in Kowtukjua Harbor. 



The first day or two after our departure, I had a repetition of 

 my old complaint, sea-sickness. Here the dogs managed better 

 than I. They could walk the deck ; I was unable. Perhaps 

 having four props to my two considerably helped them. But 

 the first night out we had a terrible shaking. Davis's Straits 

 was more like the broad ocean, and certainly as boisterous. If 

 this Strait and Baffin's Bay were, as I suggest, called "Davis and 

 Baffin's Sea," then could its billows roll high as the heavens, deep 

 as the lowest depths, without our once thinking of their assum- 

 ing to be what they are not. 



At about midnight I had bid farewell to Greenland, and — to my 

 supper ! Talk of " perpetual motion !" "Why has the world been 

 so long in seeking out so simple a problem? Ask me — I used 

 to say — ask poor sea-sick me if I believe in perpetual motion ! 

 A ship at sea is perpetually jumping up and down, which motion 

 would run a saw-mill — is perpetually rolling, and this would 

 serve to turn a grindstone — and is perpetually creaking, see- 

 sawing, pitching forward, and swinging backward. 



During the night "things in general" got capsized. I would 

 not like to swear that the George Henry turned a " summerset," 

 but, on my honor, I can say that when I retired to my berth, an 

 India-rubber cup lashed firmly on my writing-table, and holding 

 a beautiful Greenland bouquet in water, was the next morning 

 emptied of its contents, and every flower and drop of water scat- 

 tered far and near, though the cup remained in its position ! Three 

 half reams of paper, that had been placed securely over my bunk, 

 and had there rested quietly all the previous part of the voyage 

 from New London, were found scattered over an area of say sev- 

 enty-five feet. One heterogeneous mass presented itself to all 



