ourselves the total darkness from which we had so lately emerged.
“Being extremely anxious to get rid, as early as possible, of the drying of our washed clothes upon the lower deck, I had to day a silk handkerchief washed, and hung up under the stern, in order to try the effect of the sun’s rays upon it. In four hours it became thoroughly dry, the thermometer in the shade being from -18° to -6° at the time. This was the first article that had been dried without artificial heat for six months, and it was yet another month before flannel could be dried in the open air. When this is considered, as well as that, during the same period, the airing of the bedding, the drying of the bed-places, and the ventilation of the inhabited parts of the ship, were wholly dependent on the same means, and this with a very limited supply of fuel, it may, perhaps, be conceived, in some degree, what unremitting attention was necessary to the preservation of health, under circumstances so unfavorable, and even prejudicial.”
The fine and temperate weather with which the month of April concluded, induced Captain Sabine to set the clocks going, in order to commence his observations for the pendulum, and he now took up his quarters in a new house for that purpose. On the 1st of May, however, it blew a strong gale from the northward, which made it impossible to keep up the desired temperature; and so heavy was the snowdrift, that in a few hours the observatory was nearly covered. The sun was seen at midnight, for the first time this season.
On the 6th, the thermometer rose no higher than +8½° during the day; but, as the wind was moderate, and it was high time to endeavour to get the ships once more fairly afloat. Lieutenant Parry gave orders to commence the operation of cutting the ice about them; and, as the expedition, at its departure from England, had been victualled for no more than two years, he considered it expedient, as a matter of precaution, to reduce the daily allowance of every species of provisions to two-thirds of the established proportion, and to renew a former “game-law,” by which it was enacted, that every animal killed by the various shooting parties should be considered as public property, and regularly issued, in lieu of other meat, without the slightest distinction between the messes of the officers and those of the ships’ companies. “On the 17th,” says he, “we completed the operation of cutting the
