The sailors drank tea-water without sugar every morning and evening,
with the addition of a glass of brandy; for dinner they had pease,
beans, barley, or potatoes, with salted cod, bacon, "or junk;" good
sea-biscuit they could get whenever they chose.
The diet is not the worst part of these poor people's hardships.
Their life may be called a continual fight against the elements; for
it is precisely during the most dreadful storms, with rain and
piercing cold, that they have to be continually upon deck. I could
not sufficiently admire the coolness, or rather the cheerfulness and
alacrity with which they fulfilled their onerous duties. And what
reward have they? Scanty pay, for food the diet I have just
described, and for their sleeping-place the smallest and most
inconvenient part of the ship, a dark place frequently infested with
vermin, and smelling offensively from being likewise used as a
receptacle for oil-colours, varnish, tar, salt-fish, &c. &c.
To be cheerful in the midst of all this requires a very quiet and
contented mind. That the Danish sailors are contented, I had many
opportunities of observing during the voyage of which I am speaking,
and on several other occasions.
But after all this long description, it is high time that I should
return to the journey itself.
The favourable gale which had thus wafted us to the coast of Iceland
within seven days, now unfortunately changed its direction, and
drove us back.
