“Well, we’re cosy enough here, that’s certain, Nie, and as contrasts are pleasant sometimes, why, let’s hear of some doings of yours in the ice and snow.”
“So let it be, Ben; I will tell you of a Christmas I once spent in the Arctic Ocean.”
“Not a very jolly one, I suppose,” Ben replied.
“Not so dull as you might imagine, I can tell you. Ours was a brave brig, as strong as iron and oak could make us. It seemed to me that there were no icebergs big enough to hurt us. We had spent the summer whaling in Baffin’s Bay. The sport we had, so far as birds and bears and seals and foxes were concerned, was as good as anyone could have wished; while the wild grandeur of the scenery, and the very desolation of some of it, are painted on the tablets of my memory, and will remain for ever. But we had not the fortune to kill a single whale.
“Then winter came on us all at once, and we found ourselves frozen in, in one of the dreariest packs of ice it has ever been my lot to lie in. The days got shorter and shorter, till the sun at last went down to rise no more for months. We had the glorious aurora, though, and moonlight and stars, but sometimes for weeks together snows fell and storms raged, and we were enveloped in total darkness and a silence deep and awful as that of the very vaults of death. We managed, despite the weather, to give Christmas a welcome, and were gay enough for a time. Perhaps it was our very gaiety at this season that caused us to be so gloomy and disheartened afterwards.
“Sickness came, the black death almost decimated our crew, and when, in the cold bleak spring-time, the sun returned, and the ice opened and allowed us to stagger southwards, though the whales were plentiful, there were not men enough to man the boats, and hardly enough to set the sails.
“I had been an invalid; indeed, I had barely escaped with life, and it would be long ere I was fit again for the wild roving existence and wild sports in which my soul was so much bound up.
“‘Come with me, sir,’ said our captain when we reached New York at last. ‘I’m going south for the good of my health, and I have cousins near San Francisco, and it is right welcome we both shall be.’
