LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
655 
the boats, at the place just mentioned. There was now a stove 
for the officers’ room or cabin, as it was called, and one for the 
berth of the seamen; and there being no scarcity of funnelling, 
the engineer was set to work so to distribute the funnels, that 
the warm air might be diffused through every part of the house. 
Notwithstanding, however, this arrangement, the men com¬ 
plained most bitterly of the cold, which they had to endure—one 
stove not being adequate to impart a sufficient heat for 16 men, 
or that they could all enjoy the benefit of it at the same time. 
There were only four persons to the stove in the officers’ berth : 
Capt. Ross, Commander Ross, Mr. Thom, and Mr. Mc’Diarmid. 
The cold was at times so intense in the seamen’s berth, that they 
could not rest in their blankets, but were obliged to walk about 
the whole of the night, to keep life within them. During the 
middle of the day, that the cooking was carried on, (for nothing 
was allowed to be cooked in the officers’ house,) the temperature 
of the sailors’ berth was seldom higher than 20 or 25 above 
zero, and at night it has been known to be 30 below it. Every 
drop of water, that was used, was obtained from melted snow, 
which, however, could only be gathered in calm weather, for 
the men found it impossible to withstand the severity of the 
drift, when the wind was even moderately strong : but, on those 
days, and many there were, that it blew a gale, there was no 
such thing, as the sailors termed it, of projecting their noses out 
of the door, for fear of returning with the major part of it cut off. 
To add to their desolate condition, the sun was now about 
to leave them ; and the dismal prospect presented itself, of 
three months of utter darkness, with the exception, now and 
then, of the flitting coruscations of the aurora borealis, which 
increased the density of the after darkness. 
The sun, though 
Shorn of his glory, through the drear profound, 
With melancholy aspect and dull orb, 
Looks on the day, while he strives to pierce 
And dissipate the slow reluctant gloom— 
Seems but a j ayless globe, an autumnal moon, 
