Arthur Laurenson

“ But there was little difference between day and night; there was no darkness, as, between the clear starry sky above and the snow and ice below, there was reflection as bright as an ordinary moonlight at home. For weeks there was not a breath of wind—not so much as you could feel on your cheek, and the ship was as immovable as a rock. We knew we had not changed our position a yard, as the captain took regular observations of the stars, and found that we had not moved.
By-and-by, the men began to get dull and low-spirited. ”

“ Then the biscuit-a-day allowance ceased, but not till we were fairly out of the ice—and every man got leave to eat what he liked; but the most of them had picked up wonderfully every hour after that “making sail.” We had a tough job getting the rudder shipped as soon as we cleared the ice: it took us nine hours to ship it, but we managed it. Then, with a gale of W. wind and the Atlantic before us, we felt we were all right. Well, we ran before it as hard as we could, every man getting stronger and heartier with every mile of easting we made. ”

“ For ten days we never started tack or sheet, carrying on with every stitch we could crowd upon her: little grass grew under the Harmony’s heels for that time; and, at the close of the tenth day we sighted the Old Rock (as we Shetlanders call our land) once more. It perhaps isn’t quite a Paradise of a country. ”