TIIE FIRE-CLOTHED BAG. 
39 
lirst for ten days, was distributed raw. By keeping 
the rabbits carefully covered up, they reached the ship 
sufficiently unfrozen to give us about a pint of raw 
blood. It was a grateful cordial to Brooks, Wilson, 
and Riley. 
“ February 7, Wednesday.—The weather was misty 
when I went out this morning, and the twinkling of 
the stars confirmed Petersen’s prognostic of a warm 
southeaster before evening. Mist, stars, and Petersen 
were right. The gale is upon us, darkening the air 
with snow, and singing in wild discords through the 
rigging. 
u It is enough to solemnize men of more joyous tem¬ 
perament than ours has been for some months. We 
are contending at odds with angry forces close around 
us, without one agent or influence within eighteen hun¬ 
dred miles whose sympathy is on our side. 
“ My poor fellows, most of them bred in the super¬ 
stitions of the sea, are full of evil bodings. We have 
a large old seal-skin bag on deck, that holds our rem¬ 
nant of furs. It hangs from the main-stay, and we 
have all of us jested in the times of ordinary darkness 
about its grotesque physiognomy. To-night it has 
worn a new character. One of the crew, crawling out¬ 
side, saw it swinging in the storm with furious energy, 
and pounding against the mast like a giant boxing- 
glove. It glowed too with supernatural light; and he 
is sure it spoke some dreadful message, though he was 
too much perturbed to give it audience. There is no 
reasoning with him about it, and his messmates laugh, 
