288 
EFFECTS OF NIGHT. 
"Our snow-water has been infected for the past 
month by a very perceptible flavor and odor of musk, 
to such a degree sometimes that we could hardly drink 
it. After many attempts to find out its cause, and at 
least as many philosophical disquisitions to account 
for it without one, I accidentally saw to-day a group 
of foxes on the floes about our brig, who resolved our 
doubts by an illustration altogether simple and natural. 
January 22. On reaching the deck at half past 
eight this morning, after my usual sleepless night in 
the murky den below, I found the horizon free from 
cloud stratus, and the feeble foreshado wings of day 
bathing the snow with a neutral tint. By nine we 
could see to walk ; and as late as five in the afternoon, 
the refracted twilights hung about the western sky. 
How delicious is this sensation of coming day ! In 
less than a fortnight the great planet will be lifted by 
the bountiful refraction of the Arctic circle into clear 
eye presence. 
" I long for day. The anomalous host of evils which 
hang about this vegetation in darkness are showing 
themselves in all their forms. My scurvy patients, 
those I mean on the sick-list, with all the care that it 
is possible to give them, are perhaps no worse ; but 
pains in the joints, rheumatisms, coughs, loss of appe- 
tite, and general debility, extend over the whole com- 
pany. Fifteen pounds of food per diem are consumed 
reluctantly now, where thirty-two were taken with 
appetite on the 20th of October. We are a ghastly 
set of pale faces, and none paler than myself. I find 
it a labor to carry my carbine. My fingers cling to- 
gether in an ill-adjusted p/e:r«^s, like the toes in a tight 
boot, and my long beard is becoming as rough and 
rugged as Humphrey of Gloster's in the play. 
4 
