208 
TIIEIR DEPORTMENT. 
round casks and boxes, and out into the light again, 
anxious to touch and handle every thing they saw, 
and asking for, or else endeavoring to steal, every thing 
they touched. It was the more difficult to restrain 
them, as I did not wish them to suppose that we were 
at all intimidated. But there were some signs of our 
disabled condition which it was important they should 
not see: it was especially necessary to keep them out 
of the forecastle, where the dead body of poor Baker 
was lying: and, as it was in vain to reason or per¬ 
suade, we had at last to employ the “ gentle laying-on 
of hands,” which, I believe, the laws of all countries 
tolerate, to keep them in order. 
Our whole force w r as mustered and kept constantly 
on the alert; but, though there may have been some¬ 
thing of discourtesy in the occasional shoulderings and 
bustlings that enforced the police of the ship, things 
went on good-humouredly. Our guests continued 
running in and out and about the vessel, bringing in 
provisions, and carrying them out again to their dogs 
on the ice, in fact, stealing all the time, until the 
afternoon; when, like tired children, they threw them¬ 
selves down to sleep. I ordered them to be made 
comfortable in the hold; and Morton spread a large 
buffalo-robe for them, not far from a coal-fire in the 
galley-stove. 
They were lost in barbarous amaze at the new fuel, 
—too hard for blubber, too soft for firestone;—but they 
were content to believe it might cook as well as seals’- 
fat. They borrowed from us an iron pot and some 
