360 
THE SCURVY. 
The crisp covering, over which I used to skim along a 
few weeks ago, hroke through with me at every step. It 
was just strong enough to tantalize and deceive. Nev- 
er, in the warmest days of summer harvest-time, have 
I felt the heat so much as on this Arctic May-day ; and 
yet no life, no organization carried me hack to the 
spring-time of reviving nature. Even the tinnitus of 
the idle ear, that inner droning that sings to you in the 
silent sunshine at home, was wanting. In fact, the si- 
lentness was so complete, and the reflection from the 
snow so excessive, though I had a green rag over my 
face, that when I got far away, and out of sight of ev- 
ery thing hut the interminable ice, -it made me feel as 
if the world I left you in and the world about me were 
not exactly parts of the same planet. 
" And so I traveled hack to my sick men. God 
bless us ! here are old Blinn, and Carter, and Wilson, 
all on my list for fainting spells : the same scurvy syn- 
cope our officers complain of Captain G-riffin faint- 
ed dead away, and Lovell complains of strange feel- 
ings. We need fresh food sorely. I hardly think any 
organized expedition to these regions was ever so com- 
pletely deprived of anti-scorbutic diet as we are at this 
time. 
" Midnight. My old scurvy symptoms, it may be, 
that keep me from sleeping. But I write by the light 
of the sun ; and it really seems to me that there is a 
something about this persistent day antagonistic to 
sleep. The idea thrust itself upon me last summer. 
Thinking the fact over afterward, I referred it to hab- 
it, acting unphilosophically, as it is apt to do; and 
concluded that my sleeplessness was not connected 
directly with the augmented or continued light. But 
this is not so. I neither get to sleep so easily nor sleep 
