THAWING. 
355 
allowed to look out at the sun, and the galley, with 
its perpetual odors, is banished to the hurricane- 
house on deck. That peculiar interspace between 
the coal and the 'purser's slops,' so dark and full of 
head-bumping beams, exults in the full glare of day. 
What a wonderful hole we have been existing in! 
It, the half-deck, as it is called on board ship, is three 
feet six inches high, by fourteen feet long and seven- 
teen broad. On it, forgetful of precedence and rank, 
our bedding separated from the loose planking by a 
canvas cot frame, slept Murdaugh, Vreeland, Brooks, 
De Haven, two cooks, and Dr. Kane. The last-named 
came on board last, and found, though he is not a 
very large man, a sufficiently narrow kennel between 
the companion-ladder and the dinner-table. Our cloth- 
ing, as it now welcomed the sun, was black with lamp- 
soot; the beams above fringed, and festooned, and 
wreathed with the same. My bed- coverings, frozen 
over the feet in the winter, are bathed with inky wa- 
ter. But all this is to be removed to-day; and we go 
back to the luxuries of bunks, and daylight, and a 
long breath. 
" The day was bright and sunny. I walked out to 
the open water. Marks of commotion, hummock 
ridges, and chasms. A new feature was the thaw. 
Heretofore I could stand upon the brink of the cleanly- 
separated fissures, and look down upon the bleak water 
as securely as from a quartz rock. To-day every thing 
around (pshaw ! the snow and ice, I mean ; we have 
no things here) was wet and crumbling. The snow 
covered deceitfully some very dangerous cracks : in 
one of these I sunk neck deep. My carbine caught 
across it, and Holmes pulled me out. 
" We are very anxious to obtain fresh meat for the 
4 
