Where Did They Get Ground?) To
Believe That They Were Then In A Higher Southern Latitude Than
Had Been Attained
By that enterprising seaman, the late Captain
James Weddel, and therefore higher than all their predecessors,
an extra allowance of
Grog was issued to the crews as a reward
for their perseverance."
Let not us sailors of late centuries take upon ourselves any airs
on account of our Newtons and our Cuviers; we deserve an extra
allowance of grog only.
We endeavored in vain to persuade the wind to blow through the
long corridor of the canal, which is here cut straight through
the woods, and were obliged to resort to our old expedient of
drawing by a cord. When we reached the Concord, we were forced
to row once more in good earnest, with neither wind nor current
in our favor, but by this time the rawness of the day had
disappeared, and we experienced the warmth of a summer afternoon.
This change in the weather was favorable to our contemplative
mood, and disposed us to dream yet deeper at our oars, while we
floated in imagination farther down the stream of time, as we had
floated down the stream of the Merrimack, to poets of a milder
period than had engaged us in the morning. Chelmsford and
Billerica appeared like old English towns, compared with
Merrimack and Nashua, and many generations of civil poets might
have lived and sung here.
What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian,
and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much
more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray.
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