VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
115 
this remote part of the world, and gave me every 
assurance in his power of his satisfaction at seeing 
me ; I found him, as is usual in foreigners, extremely 
observant, and very inquisitive ; he expressed him- 
self particularly anxious to learn my plans for the 
saving of shipwrecked seamen; and I felt much 
pleasure in explaining to him the nature, principle, 
and design of my inventions, assuring him, that 
warmly as I desired that my country should derive 
advantage from my labours, I had yet been actuated 
by the hope, that foreigners would also be enabled 
to participate in the benefit of them. After I had 
explained every particular, he shewed me a curious 
collection which he had made during this voyage of 
subjects of natural history, and gave me a very fine 
specimen of a cancer pulex, which he had taken a 
few days since from the whale he had last caught, 
it being entangled to the laminae in the mouth of 
that fish. He also shewed me a foetus, taken out 
of a female narwal, which he had caught in the 
early part of the voyage ; and expressed his regret 
that it was not in his power to give it to me, because 
it was designed for the museum at Stockholm, so I 
contented myself with securing an exact representa- 
tion of it both in figure and size. 
Having taken my leave, I returned to my ship, 
and on the way shot many arctic birds. On my 
getting on board, the ship was about to penetrate 
what had been until a few minutes before an im- 
penetrable barrier of ice, but which was beginning 
to open to the north-west. This ice which had 
