258 LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of 
being able to get to Spitzbergen at all—-received a 
tremendous shock. We had just sat down to dinner, 
and 1 was helping the Consul to fish, when in comes 
Wilson, his face, as usual, upside down, and hisses 
something into the Doctor’s ear. Ever since the famous 
dialogue which had taken place between them on the 
subject of sea-sickness, Wilson had got to look upon 
Fitz as in some sort his legitimate prey, and whenever 
the burden of his own misgivings became greater than 
he could bear, it was to the Doctor that he unbosomed 
himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by the look of 
gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great calamity 
had occurred, and it turned out that the following was 
the agreeable announcement he had been in such haste 
to make: “ Do you know, Sir?”-—This was always 
the preface to tidings unusually doleful. “ No—what?” 
said the Doctor, breathless. “ Oh nothing, Sir; only 
two sloops have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir 
—where they couldn’t get, Sir;—such a precious lot of 
ice—two hundred miles from the land—and, oh, Sir— 
they’ve come back with all their bows stove in!” 
Now, immediately on arriving at Hammerfest, my first 
