654 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
dared, that they never felt the cold so severely as on this expedi¬ 
tion to Batty Bay. The thermometer, indeed, was only at 
10° below zero, but the men attributed the excessive cold, which 
they felt, to the difference in their clothing, which was any thing 
but calculated to protect them from the influence of the frost; and, at 
night, their housing was so bad, as scarcely to deserve the name 
of a covering. One night, whilst they were 10 miles from Batty 
Bay, their tent was entirely blown away, and the snow-drift at the 
time so heavy and piercing, as almost to cut them in two. When 
the accident happened, the men were all asleep, rolled up in 
their sacks; and, on suddenly awakening, their feelings can 
scarcely be described, when they found themselves nearly covered 
with heavy drifts of snow, and the wind driving it against them, 
with a fury scarcely to be resisted. 
Six days were occupied in the transportation of the things; 
on the 18th, they got back to the beach, and happy were they 
to find themselves once again in their snow house. So compa¬ 
rative is the happiness of man, that that, which, at one period, 
is regarded with indifference and contempt, as being incapable 
of administering in the smallest degree to our personal comfort, 
is found, at a future time, to be possessed of some extraor¬ 
dinary advantages, and from which a positive degree of happi¬ 
ness is to be derived. An individual, properly to appreciate 
the benefits of fortune, ought previously to have been familiar 
with misfortune : and a man, who, sleeping under a tent, in the 
74th degree of north latitude, suddenly awakens, and finds it 
blown away, with an arctic snow storm driving in his face, feels 
himself in a state of comparative comfort, when he is housed 
between four walls of snow, with a cheerful fire, throwing its 
genial heat around him, and the cauldron bubbling with the fa¬ 
rinaceous meal. 
Tlie most valuable acquisition obtained by the crew, by the 
transportation of the stores from Batty Bay, was, one of the 
stoves, which had been brought from the Victory. There were, 
originally, three stoves, one to each boat: one of them was 
brought away, when they took their departure from Batty Bay ; 
the crew had now brought another, and the third was left under 
