DRIFTWOOD. 
305 
diminished. Still the walk was very refreshing after 
our confinement on hoard; and although the thermo¬ 
meter was below freezing, the cold only made the exercise 
more pleasant. A little to the northward I observed-— 
lying on the sea-shore—innumerable logs of drift wood. 
This wood is floated all the way from America by the 
Gulf Stream, and as I walked from one huge bole to 
another, I could not help wondering in what primeval 
forest each had grown, what chance had originally cast 
them on the waters, and piloted them to this desert 
shore. Mingled with this fringe of unhewn timber that 
I 
lined the beach—lay—waifs and strays of a more sinister 
kind; pieces of broken spars, an oar, a boat’s flag-staff, 
and a few shattered fragments of some long-lost vessel's 
planking. Here and there, too, we would come upon 
skulls of walrus, ribs and shoulder-blades of bears,— 
brought possibly by the ice in winter. Turning again 
from the sea, we resumed our search for deer; but two 
or three hours more very stiff walking produced no 
better luck. Suddenly a cry from Fitz, who had wan¬ 
dered a little to the right, brought us helter-skelter to 
the spot where he was standing. But it was not a stag 
he had called us to come and look upon. Half imbedded 
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