The English at the North Pole

the visitors. The doctor knew enough Danish to enable him to establish a very agreeable acquaintance with them; besides, Foker, who was interpreter of the expedition, as well as ice-mas

e Lutheran minister, of a school, and magazines stored with the produce of wrecks. The rem

d raw-fish-eater, and he likewise knew that the name was considered an insult in the country, for which reason he did not fail to address them by the title of Greenlanders, and nevertheless only by the look of their oily sealskin clothi

and manners of the Esquimaux, and learnt by signs that seals were worth about ￡40 delivered in Copenhagen, a bearskin forty Danish dollars, a blue foxskin four, and a white one two or three dollars. The doctor also wished, with an eye to completing his personal education, to visit one of the Esquimaux huts; it is almost impossible to imagine of what a learned man who is desirous of knowledge is capable. Happily the opening of those hovels was

urse his corpulence the less for that. He wished to j

, "one gets used to

s to part with them. Shandon wanted also to engage Hans Christian, the clever dog-driver, who made one of the party of Captain McClintock's expedition; but, unfortunately, Hans was at that time in Southern Greenland. Then came the grand question, the topic of the day, was there in Uppernawik a European waiting for the pas

e last whalers seen there; he kne

quite inconceivable. Nothing at Cape Farewell,

ing in Melville Bay,' I shall greet yo

eshing to a crew fed on salted meat. The wind became favourable the next day, but, however, Shandon did not command them to get under sail; he still wished to stay another day, and for conscience' sake to give any human being time to join the Forward. He even caused t

degrees. The sun pierced through the fog, and the ice was getting a little loosened under its dissolving action. But the reflection of the white rays produced a sad effect on the eyesight of several of the crew. Wolsten, the gunsmith, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell were struck with snow blindness, a kind o

new comrades too much to heart, and he seemed to know their habits. Clifton was not the last to remark the fact that the captain must already have been in communication

ely vegetable origin. Clawbonny wanted to consider this phenomenon nearer, but the ice prevented them approaching the coast; although the temperature had a tendency to rise, it was easy enough to see that the icebergs and ice-streams were accumulating to the north of Baffin's Sea. The land offered

orward wound amongst the sinuous rocks, leaving the print of a track on the sky, caused by the black smoke from her funnels. But new obstacles were soon encountered; the paths were getting closed up in consequence of the incessant d

ose men, accustomed to an existence of danger; many, forgetting the advantages offered, regretted having ventured so far, and already a certain demoralisation

ed from six to seven feet in thickness. When two parallel grooves divided the ice for the length of a hundred feet, they had to break the interior part with hatchets or handspikes; then took place the elongation of the anchors, fixed in a hole by means of a thick auger; afterwards

n sailors have an energetic, audacious, and convinced man to do with, who knows what he wants, where he is bound for, and what end he has in view, confidence sustains them in spite of everything. They make one with their chief, feeling strong in his strength, and quiet in his tranquillity; but on the brig it

s orders; from argument to a refusal to obey the step is easy. The discontented soon ad

ing season. This was becoming dangerous. Towards eight in the evening Shandon and the doctor, accompanied by Garry, went on a voyage of discovery in the midst of the immen

e had only one foot to leap he found it was five or six, or the contrary; and in both cases t

age. Three miles from the ship they succeeded, not without trouble,

verthrown steeples and palaces turned upside down all in a lump-in fact, a genuine chaos. The sun threw long oblique rays of a light without war

t through?" excl

gh, even if we are obliged to employ powder to blow up those mountai

ers. Never mind," continued the doctor, "we shall get through with a li

andon, "that the year doesn't begi

Baffin's Sea has a tendency to return to t

at the present state of thi

tly obstructed, when suddenly an immense cataclysm took place which drove back these icebergs into the ocean, the great part of whic

ch, voyages to the no

rding to investigations made by navigators, it may probably be so for a long time-a still greater reason for us to go on as f

sked Shandon, endeavouring to rea

return, I say 'Go ahead.' However, I should like to make known to you th

ou think about it?" ask

same opinion as Mr. Clawbonny; but you do

handon. "They aren't all in an obedient humour! S

iven you my advice because you asked me for

xamined the horizon, and descended with