and strong enough to go without leading strings, and the sooner a lad
does that the better.'

"`Yes, father, I am,' said I, and I was, for I was six feet two inches
high, and could knock over an ox with my fist, as I'd done many a time
to save the butcher trouble.

"`You must look out for a ship, my son,' said my father.

"`I will,' said I, and I did. I shipped on board a Greenland whaler,
the Blazylight, and sailed the next day for the North Pole. We had a
fine run to our fishing ground, and soon began to kill our whales at a
great rate. It was the sort of sport which just suited me. I never
could stand angling for minnows; but whale-fishing is a very different
sort of work, I guess.

"We had got a full ship, and were thinking of turning south, when we
were becalmed near the land, and as the ship could not move, I, with
four or five more, started on an expedition to shoot polar bears, which
were pretty common thereabouts. We had got a good way from the ship,
when a thick fog--not an unfrequent visitor to those parts--came on. I
had a pocket-compass with me, and so I wasn't a bit alarmed. However,
when we tried to find the old Blazylight again, I must confess we could
not. We wandered about till all my companions died from sheer fright
and fatigue; and I should have died, too, if I had given in; but I
wouldn't do that; so I collected all my shipmates' ammunition, and set
to work to kill and pot bears. I lived like a prince, as far as
quantity was concerned, but I got rather tired of bear's flesh at last.
I rubbed myself over with the grease, and was soon covered from head to
foot with a hide of the finest wool, so that I didn't feel the cold a
bit. It was cold, however, at times, with a vengeance. Frequently the
frost was so severe, that it froze up even the very air, and if I had
not melted it every now and then, by firing off my gun, I should have
died for want of breath; and often it wasn't possible to move without
cutting a way for myself through the atmosphere with my axe. I
suspected, as I afterwards found to be the case, that what we had taken,
to be land, was in reality an unusually large field of ice, with
icebergs imbedded in it, and that we had been carried by some unknown
current imperceptibly towards the north for a considerable distance.
Now, when we had left the ship, we had kept to the westward. When we
wished to return, we had steered east by the pocket-compass I told you
of. On, and