Tent Life in Siberia | Page 6

the wind abeam. I replied
meekly that I believed such a catastrophe had never occurred under my
immediate observation, and as he turned to Bush with a smile of
commiseration for my ignorance I ground my teeth and went below to
inspect the pantry. Here I felt more at home. The long rows of canned
provisions, beef stock, concentrated milk, pie fruits, and a small keg,
bearing the quaint inscription, "Zante cur.," soon soothed my perturbed
spirit and convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Olga
was stanch and seaworthy, and built in the latest and most improved
style of marine architecture.
I therefore went up to tell Bush that I had made a careful and critical
examination of the vessel below, and that she would undoubtedly do. I
omitted to state the nature of the observations upon which this
conclusion was founded, but he asked no troublesome questions, and
we returned to the office with a favourable report of the ship's build,
capacity, and outfit.
On Saturday, July 1st, the Olga took in the last of her cargo, and was
hauled out into the stream.
Our farewell letters were hastily written home, our final preparations
made, and at nine o'clock on Monday morning we assembled at the
Howard Street wharf, where the steam-tug lay which was to tow us out
to sea.
A large party of friends had gathered to bid us good-bye; and the pier,
covered with bright dresses and blue uniforms, presented quite a
holiday appearance in the warm clear sunshine of a California morning.

Our last instructions were delivered to us by Colonel Bulkley, with
many hearty wishes for our health and success; laughing invitations to
"come and see us" were extended to our less fortunate comrades who
were left behind; requests to send back specimens of the North pole and
the aurora borealis were intermingled with directions for preserving
birds and collecting bugs; and amid a general confusion of
congratulations, good wishes, cautions, bantering challenges, and
tearful farewells, the steamer's bell rang. Dall, ever alive to the interests
of his beloved science, grasped me cordially by the hand, saying,
"Good-bye, George. God bless you! Keep your eye out for land-snails
and skulls of the wild animals!"
Miss B---- said pleadingly: "Take care of my dear brother"; and as I
promised to care for him as if he were my own, I thought of another
sister far away, who, could she be present, would echo the request:
"Take care of my dear brother." With waving handkerchiefs and
repeated good-byes, we moved slowly from the wharf, and, steaming
round in a great semicircle to where the Olga was lying, we were
transferred to the little brig, which, for the next two months, was to be
our home.
The steamer towed us outside the "heads" of the Golden Gate, and then
cast off; and as she passed us on her way back, our friends gathered in a
little group on the forward deck, with the colonel at their head, and
gave three generous cheers for the "first Siberian exploring party." We
replied with three more,--our last farewell to civilisation,--and silently
watched the lessening figure of the steamer, until the white
handkerchief which Arnold had tied to the backstays could no longer be
seen, and we were rocking alone on the long swells of the Pacific.

CHAPTER II
CROSSING THE NORTH PACIFIC--SEVEN WEEKS IN A
RUSSIAN BRIG
"He took great content and exceeding delight in his voyage, as who

doth not as shall attempt the like."--BURTON.
AT SEA, 700 MILES N.W. OF SAN FRANCISCO. _Wednesday, July
12, 1865_.
Ten days ago, on the eve of our departure for the Asiatic coast, full of
high hopes and joyful anticipations of pleasure, I wrote in a fair round
hand on this opening page of my journal, the above sentence from
Burton; never once doubting, in my enthusiasm, the complete
realisation of those "future joys," which to "fancy's eye" lay in such
"bright uncertainty," or suspecting that "a life on the ocean wave" was
not a state of the highest felicity attainable on earth. The quotation
seemed to me an extremely happy one, and I mentally blessed the
quaint old Anatomist of Melancholy for providing me with a motto at
once so simple and so appropriate. Of course "he took great content and
exceeding delight in his voyage"; and the wholly unwarranted
assumption that because "he" did, every one else necessarily must, did
not strike me as being in the least absurd.
On the contrary, it carried all the weight of the severest logical
demonstration, and I would have treated with contempt any suggestion
of possible disappointment. My ideas of sea life had been derived
principally from glowing poetical descriptions of marine sunsets, of
"summer isles of Eden, lying in