“February 10. A hazy day; with moon-light, and a drizzling fall of broken spiculæ following it. Mr. Murdaugh obtained observations for meridian altitude and time-sights of Aldebaran: our latitude is 72° 19', our longitude 68° 55'. The winds have been unfavorable to the rapidity of our drift, which has been reduced in its rate since our observation on the 29th of January from five and a quarter to four miles a day. It may be that our approach to the narrower parts of the bay and the increased cold together have been disturbing causes in the movement of the great pack; but the wind has been the most important in its influence.
“To look at the completely unbroken area which shows itself from our mast-head, motion would be the last idea suggested. In Lancaster Sound the changing phases of the coast gave us a feeling of progress, movement, drift—that sensation of change so pleasing to one’s incomprehensible moral machinery. But here, with this circle of impenetrable passive solidity everywhere around us, it is hard to realize that we move. But for the stars, my convictions of rest would be absolute. Yet we have thus traveled upward of three hundred miles. I shall not soon forget this inevitable march, with its alternations of gloomy silence and fierce disruptions.
“February 11, Wednesday. Day very hazy, and nothing to interrupt its monotony. It requires an effort to bear up against this solemn transit of unvarying time.
“I will show you how I spend one of these days—that is, all of them. It is the only palliation I can offer for my meagreness of incident. As for the study we used to talk about—even you, terrible worker as you are, could not study in the Arctic regions.
“Within a little area, whose cubic contents are less than father’s library, you have the entire abiding-place of thirty-three heavily-clad men. Of these I am one. Three stoves and a cooking galley, four Argand and three bear-fat lamps burn with the constancy of a vestal shrine. Damp furs, soiled woolens, cast off boots, sick men, cookery, tobacco-smoke, and digestion are compounding their effluvia around and within me. Hour by hour, and day after day, without even a bunk to retire to or a blanket-curtain to hide me, this and these make up the reality of my home.
“Outside, grim death, in the shape of -40°, is trying—most foolishly, I think—to chill the energy of these his allies. My bedding lies upon the bare deck, right under the hatch. A thermometer, placed at the head of my cot, gives a mean temperature of 64°; at my feet, under the hatchway, +16° to -4°—ice at my feet, vapor at my head. The sleeping-bunks aft range from 70° to 93°; those forward, regulated by the medical officer, from 60° to 65°.
“We rise, the crew at six bells, seven o’clock, and the officers at seven bells, half an hour later. Thus comports himself your brother. He sits up in the midst of his blankets, and drinks a glass of cold water; eyes, nose, and mouth chippy with lamp-black and undue evaporation. Oh! how comforting this water is! That over, a tin-basin, in its turn, is brought round by Morton, mush-like with snow; and in this mixture, by the aid of a hard towel, with a daily regularity that knows no intermission, he goes over his entire skeleton, frictionizing.
“This done, comes the dressing—the two pairs of stockings, the three under-shirts, the fur outer robing, and the seal-skin boots; and then, with a hurried cough of disgust and semi-suffocation, he is on deck. There the air, pure and sharply cold, now about 26° or 30°, last week 40° below zero, braces you up like peach and honey in a Virginia fog, or a tass of mountain dew in the Highlands. Then to breakfast. Here are the mess, with the fresh smell of overnight undisturbed, and on our table griddle cakes of Indian meal, hominy, and mackerel: with hot coffee and good appetites, we fall to manfully.
“Breakfast over, on go the furs again; and we escape from the accumulating fumes of ‘servants’ hall,' walking the floes, or climbing to the tops, till we are frozen enough to go below again. One hour spent now in an attempt at study—vainly enough, poor devil! But he does try, and what little he does is done then. By half past ten our entire little band of officers are out upon the floes for a bout at anti-scorbutic exercise, a game of romps: first foot-ball, at which we kick till our legs ache; next sliding, at which we slide until we can slide no more: then off, with carbine on shoulder, and Henri as satellite, on an ice-tramp.
“Coming back, dinner lags at two. Then for the afternoon—God spare the man who can with unscathed nose stand the effluvium. But night follows soon, and with it the saddening question. What has the day achieved? And then we stretch ourselves out under the hatches, and sleep to the music of our thirty odd room-mates.