"In exchange for a few hundred seal-skins, and some kegs of rancid blubber, we have got pickled bear's flesh, bull-heads, gulls and belugas, salmon-trout, and reindeer tongues, hares and partridges in pickle, with a few tubs of whortleberries, preserved in oil. We shall have the white bear in the cabin to ourselves."
"Why?"
"Sailors won't eat white bear hams?"
"But why?"
"They assert that the flesh makes their hair grey. We have also a cask of sorrel preserved in blubber."
"Ugh! of course; but for what purpose?"
"As a preservative against scurvy. And now up blue-peter, man the windlass, and heave short on the anchor!"
We sailed an hour before sunset; and ere the pale white moon rose from the sea, the jagged pinnacles of Sermesoak and the stormy bluff of Cape Farewell were melting into the brilliant sky astern, while our sailors sang cheerily as they hoisted the working anchor on board, unbent the chain-cable and stowed it in the tier. The month being May we had the light of the sun nearly all night, though in the daytime he only rises thirty-three degrees above the horizon.
However, we lit our binnacle lamps when he set, the sails were trimmed for a south-west course, and now we fairly bore away into the mighty ocean, and bade adieu for ever to the REGION OF ICE.