262 
FREEZING TO DEATH. 
his cheeks frozen, and I felt that lethargic numbness 
mentioned in the story books. 
"I will tell you what this feels like, for I have been 
twice 'caught out.' Sleepiness is not the sensation. 
Have you ever received the shocks of a magneto-elec- 
tric machine, and had the peculiar benumbing sensa- 
tion of ' can't let go,' extending up to your elbow- 
joints ? Deprive this of its paroxysmal character ; sub- 
due, but diffuse it over every part of the system, and 
you have the so-called pleasurable feelings of incipient 
freezing. It seems even to extend to your brain. Its 
inertia is augmented ; every thing about you seems 
of a ponderous sort ; and the whole amou.nt of pleasure 
is in gTatifying the disposition to remain at rest, and 
spare yourself an encounter with these latent resist- 
ances. This is, I suppose, the pleasurable sleepiness 
of the story books. 
"I could fill page after page with the ludicrous mis- 
eries of our ship-board life. We have two climates, 
hygrometrically as well as thermometrically at oppo- 
site ends of the scale. A pocket-handkerchief, pocket- 
ed below in the region of stoves, comes up unchanged. 
Go below again, and it becomes moist, flaccid, and 
almost wet. Go on deck again, and it resembles a 
shingle covered with linen. I could pick my teeth 
with it. 
"You are anxious to know how I manage to stand 
this remorseless temperature. It is a short story, and 
perhaps worth the telling. ' The Doctor' still retains 
three luxuries, remnants of better times — silk next 
his skin, a tooth-brush for his teeth, and white linen 
for his nose. Every thing else is Arctic and hairy — 
fur, fur, fur. The silk is light and washable, needing 
neither the clean dirt of starch nor the uncomfortable 
