220 
WELLINGTON CHANNEL. 
watch patiently for hours together to get a shot at 
seals, with the thermonieter at +10°. I wrote my 
journal in imaginary comfort with a temperature of 
40°, and was positively distressed with heat when ex- 
ercising on the ice with the mercury at +19°. 
I return to my diary, 
" October 3. I write at midnight. Leaving the deck, 
where I have heen tramping the cold out of my joints, 
I come helow to our little cabin. As I open the hatch, 
every thing seems bathed in dirty milk. A cloud of 
vapor gushes out at every chink, and, as the cold air 
travels down, it is seen condensing deeper and deeper. 
The thermometer above is at 7° below zero. 
" The brig and the ice around her are covered by a 
strange black obscurity — not a mist, nor a haze, but a 
peculiar, waving, palpable, unnatural darkness : it is 
the frost-smoke of Arctic winters. Its range is very 
low. Climbing to the yard-arm, some thirty feet above 
the deck, I looked over a great horizon of black smoke, 
and above me saw the heaven without a blemish. 
" October 4. The open pools can no longer be called 
pools; they are great rivers, whose hummock-lined 
shores look dimly through the haze. Contrasted with 
the pure white snow, their waters are black even to 
inkyness ; and the silent tides, undisturbed by ripple 
or wash, pass beneaith a pasty film of constantly form- 
ing ice. The thermometer is at 10°. Away from the 
ship, a long way, I walked over the older ice to a 
spot where the open river was as wide as the Dela- 
ware. Here, after some crevice-jumping and tickly- 
hender crossing, I set myself behind a little rampart 
of hummocks, watching for seals. 
"As I watched, the smoke, the frost-smoke, came 
down in wreaths, like the lambent tongues of burning 
