396 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
the remains of four ships that had run aground upon it, 
and were nearly run into ourselves by a clumsy mer¬ 
chantman, whom we had the relief of being able to abuse 
in our native vernacular, and the most racy sea-slang. 
Those five last days were certainly the only tedious 
period of the whole cruise. I suppose there is some¬ 
thing magnetic in the soil of one’s own country, which 
may account for that impatient desire to see it again, 
which always grows, as the distance from it diminishes; 
if so, London clay — and its superstratum of foul, 
greasy, gas-discoloured mud—began about this time 
to exercise a tender influence upon me, which has 
been increasing every hour since: it is just possible 
that the thoughts of seeing you again, may have some 
share in the matter. 
Somebody (I think Fuller) says somewhere, that 
“every one with whom you converse, and every place 
wherein you tarry awhile, giveth somewhat to you, and 
taketh somewhat away, either for evil or for good;” 
a startling consideration for circumnavigators, and such 
like restless spirits; but a comfortable thought, in 
some respects, for voyagers to Polar regions, as (except 
seals and bears) few things could suffer evil from us 
