The Monikins

by James Fenimore Cooper

For the whole of that day we worked our devious course, by great labor and at uncertain intervals, to the southward; and at night we fastened the Walrus to a floe, in waiting for the return of light. Just as the day dawned, however, I heard a tremendous grating sound against the side of the vessel; and rushing on deck, I found that we were completely caught between two immense fields, which seemed to be attracted towards each other for no other apparent purpose than to crush us. Here it was that the expedient of Captain Poke made manifest its merits. Protected by the massive timbers and false ribs, the bilge of the ship resisted the pressure; and as, under such circumstances, something must yield, luckily nothing but the attraction of gravitation was overcome. The skids, through their inclination, acted as wedges, the links pressing against the keel; and in the course of an hour the Walrus was gradually lifted out of the water, maintaining her upright position, in consequence of the powerful nip of the floes. No sooner was this experiment handsomely effected, than Mr. Poke jumped upon the ice, and commenced an examination of the ship’s bottom.

“Here’s a dry-dock for you, Sir John!” exclaimed the old sealer, chuckling. “I’ll have a patent for this, the moment I put foot ag’in in Stunin’tun.”

A feeling of security, to which I had been a stranger ever since we entered the ice, was created by the composure of Noah, and by his self-congratulation at what he called his project to get a look at the Walrus’s bottom. Notwithstanding all the fine declarations of exultation and success, however, that he flourished among us who were not mariners, I was much disposed to think that, like other men of extraordinary genius, he had blundered on the grand result of his “ice-screws,” and that it was not foreseen and calculated. Let this be as it may, however, all hands were soon on the floe, with brooms, scrapers, hammers, and nails, and the opportunity of repairing and cleaning was thoroughly improved.

For four-and-twenty hours the ship remained in the same attitude, still as a church, and some of us began to entertain apprehensions that she might be kept on her frozen blocks forever. The accident had happened, according to the statements of Captain Poke, in lat. 78 degrees 13′ 26″—although I never knew in what manner he ascertained the important particular of our precise situation. Thinking it might be well to get some more accurate ideas on this subject, after so long and ticklish a run, I procured the quadrant from Bob Ape, and brought it down upon the ice, where I made it a point, as an especial favor, the weather being favorable and the proper hour near, that our commander would correct his instinct by a solar observation. Noah protested that your old seaman, especially if a sealer and a Stunin’tunner, had no occasion for such geometry operations, as he termed them; that it might be well enough, perhaps necessary, for your counting-house, silk-gloved captains, who run between New York and Liverpool, to be rubbing up their glasses and polishing their sextants, for they hardly ever knew where they were, except at such times; but as for himself, he had little need of turning star-gazer at his time of life, and that as he had already told me, he was getting to be near-sighted, and had some doubts whether he could discern an object like the sun, that was known to be so many thousands of millions of miles from the earth. These scruples, however, were overcome by my cleaning the glasses, preparing a barrel for him to stand on, that he might be at the customary elevation above his horizon, and putting the instrument into his hands, the mates standing near, ready to make the calculations when he gave the sun’s declination.

“We are drifting south’ard, I know,” said Mr. Poke before he commenced his sight—“I feel it in my bones. We are at this moment in 79 degrees 36′ 14″.—having made a southerly drift of more than eighty miles since yesterday noon. Now mind my words, and see what the sun will say about it.”

When the calculations were made, our latitude was found to be 79 degrees 35′ 47″. Noah was somewhat puzzled by the difference, for which he could in no plausible way account, as the observation had been unusually good and certain. But an opinionated and an ingenious man is seldom at a loss to find a sufficient reason to establish his own correctness, or to prove the mistakes of others.

“Ay, I see how it is,” he said, after a little cogitation, “the sun must be wrong—it should be no wonder if the sun did get a little out of his track in these high, cold latitudes. Yes, yes; the sun must be wrong.”

I was too much delighted at being certain we were going on our course to dispute the point, and the great luminary was abandoned to the imputation of sometimes being in error. Dr. Reasono took occasion to say, in my private ear, that there was a sect of philosophers in Leaphigh, who had long distrusted the accuracy of the planetary system, and who had even thrown out hints that the earth, In its annual revolution, moved in a direction absolutely contrary to that which nature had contemplated when she gave the original polar impulse; but that, as regarded himself, he thought very little of these opinions, as he had frequent occasion to observe that there was a large class of monikins whose ideas always went uphill.

For two more days and as many nights, we continued to drift with the floes to the southward, or as near as might be, towards the haven of our wishes. On the fourth morning, there was a suitable change in the weather; both thermometer and barometer rose; the air became more bland, and most of our cats and dogs, notwithstanding we were still surrounded by the ice, began to cast their skins. Dr. Reasono noted these signs, and stepping on the floe, he brought back with him a considerable fragment of the frozen element. This was carried to the camboose, where it was subjected to the action of fire, which, within a given number of minutes, pretty much as a matter of course, as I thought, caused it to melt. The whole process was watched with an anxiety the most intense, by the whole of the monikins, however; and when the result was announced, the amiable and lovely Chatterissa clapped her pretty little pattes with joy, and gave all the other natural indications of delight, which characterize the emotions of that gentle sex of which she was so bright an ornament. Dr. Reasono was not backwards in explaining the cause of so much unusual exhilaration, for hitherto her manner had been characterized by the well-bred and sophisticated restraint which marks high training. The experiment had shown, by the infallible and scientific tests of monikin chemistry, that we were now within the influence of a steam-climate, and there could no longer be any rational doubt of our eventual arrival in the polar basin.

The result proved that the philosopher was right. About noon the floes, which all that day had begun to assume what is termed a “sloppy character,” suddenly gave way, and the Walrus settled down into her proper element, with great equanimity and propriety. Captain Poke lost no time in unshipping the skids; and a smacking breeze, that was well saturated with steam, springing up from the westward, we made sail. Our course was due south, without regard to the ice, which yielded before our bows like so much thick water, and just as the sun set, we entered the open sea, rioting in the luxuriance of its genial climate, in triumph.