328 
LETTEKS FEOM HIGH LATITUDES. 
Even the run on shore at Spitzbergen had not sufficed 
to repair her shattered constitution, and the bad weather 
we had had ever since—completed its ruin. It was 
certain that the butcher was the only doctor who could 
now cure her. In spite, therefore, of the distress it 
occasioned Maid Marian, I was compelled to issue orders 
for her execution. Sigurdr was the only person who 
regarded the tragical event with indifference, nay— 
almost with delight. Ever since we had commenced 
sailing in a southerly direction, we had been obliged to 
beat; but during the last four-and-twenty hours the 
wind kept dodging us every time we tacked, as a 
nervous pedestrian sets to you sometimes on a narrow 
trottoir. This spell of ill-luck the Icelander heathen- 
ishly thought would only be removed by a sacrifice 
to Rhin, the goddess of the sea, in which light he 
trusted she would look upon the goat’s body when it 
came to be thrown overboard. 
Whether the change which followed upon the con¬ 
signment of her remains to the deep, really resulted 
from such an influence, I am not prepared to say. The 
weather immediately thereafter certainly did change. 
First the wind dropped altogether; but though the 
