August 4, A Glass of wine together

August 4—Weather continues fair but the wind has dropped and we make very slow passage. The ice remains light in mid-channel where we sail, but is piled up somewhat along the north shore. 

Do you remember, on the day you bid us farewell at Greenhithe, the dove alighting on the masthead to give us an omen of good luck to carry on our endeavour. I am often put in mind of that as if the memory of it were a talisman which I can carry with me, and perhaps, knowing as I do your love of all things feathered and beaked, you too will be thinking of that same bird and our thoughts will be linked. 

I am continually amazed at how the imagination of the people was caught by our expedition before we sailed, even those who had not the slightest wish or desire to set foot in more than six inches of ocean water, and how all took such pride in what we were setting out to do and revelled in the discoveries we would make in almost unimaginable seas so far from their ken. When the steamers Rattler and Blazer left us by the island of Rona, some seventy or eighty miles from Stromness, they both, despite the heavy swell and wind from the northwest, ranged alongside us, one on each side, as close as possible without touching, and, with the whole force of lungs of officers and men, gave us not three, but a prolongation of cheers—to which we responded. Having done the same to the Terror, away they went, and in an hour or two were out of sight, leaving us with an old gull or two and the rocky Rona to look at. But it is the memory of those good wishes that means so much to us. 

I was in mind this evening of the talk there was before we left England of a brevet promotion; if this be true, I think it more than probable that I shall get the rank of Captain, although I shall know nothing of it until we have made a passage of Behring’s Strait and collected our messages in Russia. With the idea that I may now be a mighty Captain, I took a glass of brandy and water at ten o’clock. Allowing for the difference of longitude, this answers to half-past seven in London. I drank your health, in petto, fancying you might be drinking wine. In fact, we took an imaginary glass of wine together, and I don’t care how soon we may take a real one. 

Now I am laughing, for Reid has just said, scratching his head, “Why, mister Jems, you never seem to me to sleep at arl; you’re al’ays writing!” I tell him that when I do sleep, I do twice as much as other people in the same time. Now, I must to bed.