206 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
have become entangled in the corvette’s screw—which 
was the catastrophe of which I had always been most 
apprehensive; so slipping into a pair of fur boots, 
which I always kept by the bedside in case of an 
emergency, and throwing a fur cloak over— 
“ Le simple appareil 
D’une beaute cju’on vient d’arraclier an sommeil,” 
I caught hold of a telescope, and tumbled up on deck. 
Anything more bitter and disagreeable than the icy 
blast, which caught me round the waist as I emerged 
from the companion—I never remember. With both 
hands occupied in levelling the telescope, I could not 
keep the wind from blowing the loose wrap quite off 
my shoulders, and except for the name of the thing, 
I might just as well have been standing in my shirt. 
Indeed, I was so irresistibly struck with my own 
resemblance to a coloured print I remember in youthful- 
days,—representing that celebrated character “ Puss in 
Boots,” with a purple robe of honour streaming far 
behind him on the wind, to express the velocity of 
his magical progress—that I laughed aloud while I 
shivered in the blast. What with the spray and mist, 
