aying up at intervals.

"There she blows!" laughed Bonney. "Seems like old times, I declare!"

"What's that, sir?" asked Capt. Mazard, who had been below for the
last ten minutes.

"A sperm-whale on the port quarter, sir!"

Two or three miles ahead, another large iceberg was driving grandly
down. We could also see our late _consort_ a mile astern,--see and
hear it too. Higher and higher rose the fog. The sky brightened
through transient rifts in the clouds. Glad enough were we to see it
clearing up.

Either the land had fallen off to the north; or else, in our fear of
running on the cliffs, we had declined a good deal from our course.
The northern shore was now three or four leagues distant. Fog and
darkness hung over it. The bases of the mountains were black; but
their tops glistened with snow, the snow-line showing distinct two or
three hundred feet above the shore. The sails were trimmed, and the
helm put round to bear up nearer.

"What a country!" exclaimed Raed, sweeping it with his glass. "Is it
possible that people live there? What can be the inducements?"

"Seals, probably," said Kit,--"seals and whales. That's the Esquimaux
bill of fare, I've heard, varied with an occasional white bear or a
sea-horse."

"A true 'Husky' (Esquimau) won't eat a mouthful of cooked victuals,"
said Capt. Mazard; "takes every thing raw."

"Should think so much raw meat would make them fierce and savage,"
remarked Wade: "makes dogs savage to give them raw meat."

"But the Esquimaux are a rather good-natured set, I've heard," replied
Kit.

"Not always," said the captain. "The whalers have trouble with them
very often; though these whalemen are doubtless anything but angels,"
he added. "In dealing with them, it is well to have a good show of
muskets, or a big gun or two showing its muzzle: makes 'em more civil.
Cases have been where they've boarded a scantily-manned vessel; to get
the plunder, you see. Hungry for anything of the axe or iron kind."

"It would not be a bad plan to get up our howitzer, and rig a carriage
for it," said Wade. "Let's do it."

"And Wash's cannon-rifle," said Kit. "We ought to get that up. I think
it's about time to test that rather remarkable _arm_."

"The problem with me is how to mount it," said I.

"I was thinking of that the other day," remarked the captain. "I've
got a big chest below,--an old thing I don't use now: we might make
the gun fast to the top of it; then put some trucks on the