He dearly loved it, and, strangely enough, he put it to bed every night as children do their dolls, covering it carefully up with a corner of the rug on which he slept.
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Icebergs at last. A good thing it was for the Flora, that there was but little wind, for to strike against one of these huge bergs--bigger many of them were than St. Paul's Cathedral--would have meant certain destruction.
Yet although the wind was often but light, a current seemed to run rapidly enough, and the huge unbroken waves towered high above them, and more than once they narrowly escaped disaster from a huge berg being hurled down upon the vessel as if by Titanic force, as she wallowed in the trough of the sea.
Even sailing past to leeward of such ice as this took the wind for a time clean out of the sails.
Strangely enough, they reached the Antarctic Circle on Christmas day.
This was a sort of double event. Either would have been celebrated, but now both events must be rolled into one.
One would hardly imagine that King Christmas would venture into these lonely regions, but the old fellow is good-hearted, and where'er on earth a Briton goes there goes Christmas also.
Well, with the exception of Johnnie Shingles and the monkey--who, by the way, had been furnished with a brand-new scarlet flannel jacket to keep him cosy--there was not a soul on board who had not before leaving home been presented with a bunch of gay ribbons, by sweetheart or wife, to help to deck a great garland that was made, and hoisted high aloft and abaft on this auspicious morning.
Of course there were no turkeys!