ost ardent
wish to increase my stake in society, by taking a further interest in
monikins.

On this hint, I frankly made a proposal to the old sealer to undertake
the task of restoring these amiable and enlightened strangers to their
own firesides and families. The Captain soon began to discover a little
of his Stunin'tun propensity; for the more I pressed the matter on him,
the more readily he found objections. The several motives he urged for
declining the proposal, may be succinctly given as follows:--

It was true that he wanted employment, but then he wanted to see
Stunin'tun too; he doubted whether monkeys would make good sailors; it
was no joke to run in among the ice, and it might be still less of one
to find our way back again; he had seen the bodies of dead seals and
bears that were frozen as hard as stone, and which might, for anything
he knew, have lain in that state a hundred years, and, for his part, he
should like to be buried when he was good for nothing else. How did he
know these monikins might not catch the men, when they had once
fairly got them in their country, and strip them, and make them throw
summersets, as the Savoyards had compelled the Doctor, and even the
Lady Chatterissa to do?--he knew he should break his neck the very first
flap-jack; if he were ten years younger, perhaps he should like the
frolic; he did not believe the right sort of craft could be found in
England, and for his part, he liked sailing under the stars and stripes;
he didn't know but he might go if he had a crew of Stunin'tunners; he
always knew how to get along with such people; he could scare one by
threatening to tell his marm how he behaved, and bring another to reason
by hinting that the gals would shy him if he wasn't more accommodating;
then there might be no such place as Leaphigh, after all; or, if there
was, he might never find it; as for wearing a bison-skin under the
equator, it was quite out of the question, a human skin being a heavy
load to carry in the calm latitudes; and finally that he didn't exactly
see what he was to get by it.

These objections were met, one by one, reversing the order in which they
were made, and commencing with the last.

I offered a thousand pounds sterling as the reward. This proposal
brought a gleam of satisfaction into Noah's eyes, though he shook his
head, as if he thought it very little. It was then suggested that there
was no doubt we should discover certain islands that w