Many a hearty¹ cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the vessel² left Old England, and steered³ her course into the unknown regions of the far north.

 

But no cheer ever greeted her return; no bright eyes ever watched her homeward-bound sails rising on the far-off horizon.

 

Battered⁴ by the storms of the Arctic seas, her sails and cordage stiffened⁵ by the frosts, and her hull⁶ rasped and shattered by the ice of those regions, she was forced on a shore where the green grass has little chance to grow, where winter reigns⁷ nearly all the year round, where man never sends his merchandise, and never drives his plough. There the brig was frozen in; there, for two long years, she lay unable to move, and her starving crew forsook⁸ her; there, year after year, she lay, unknown, unvisited by civilised man, and unless the wild Eskimos (see note 1) have torn her to pieces, and made spears of her timbers, or the ice has swept her out to sea and whirled her to destruction, there she lies still—hard and fast in the ice.

 

The vessel was lost, but her crew were saved, and most of them returned to tell their kinsfolk of the wonders and the dangers of the frozen regions, where God has created some of the most beautiful and some of the most awful objects that were ever looked on by the eye of man.

 

What was told by the fireside, long ago, is now recounted in this book.

 

Imagine a tall, strong man, of about five-and-forty, with short, curly black hair, just beginning to turn grey; stern black eyes, that look as if they could pierce into your secret thoughts; a firm mouth, with lines of good-will and kindness

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