The day, for some reason or other, seems to have been peculiarly bright and cheerful to everybody, and the cheerfulness runs on into the evening. I fancy that our old cook was in a more than usually good humor, and doubtless this has had something to do with it. For my own part, I must acknowledge the power of his artistic skill as affecting the moral sentiments. My walk to the open water was both cold and fatiguing. Desiring to get out as far as I could, I sprang over the loose ice-tables, and reached an iceberg near "The Twins," which I mounted; and, after digging a hole into it, found that it had a temperature only 8° lower than the temperature of the water that floated it, which was 29°. I scrambled back to the fast ice as quickly as I could, for the tide and wind, which was strong from the land, looked very much as if they intended to carry the raft out to sea. [Sidenote: JOHN WILLIAMS, THE COOK.] To come back to the cook,--I was in a condition upon my return to do ample justice to a fillet of venison, garnished with currant-jelly, which was awaiting me, and upon the preparation of which the cook had evidently exhausted all his skill; and afterward Knorr made for me, with my alcohol furnace, a cup of aromatic Mocha. And so one may find pleasure even where Bacchus and Cupid deign not to come. True, this is the region into which Apollo voluntarily wandered after the decree of Olympus made him an exile, and where the Hellenic poets dreamed of men living to an incredible age, in the enjoyment of all possible felicity; but, to say the truth, I question the wisdom of the banished god, as tradition makes no mention of a schooner, and I find that in this "Residence of Boreas" one must look out for himself pretty sharply,--poets to the contrary, notwithstanding. The cook brought me the dinner himself. "I tinks de Commander likes dis," said he, "coming from de cold." "Yes, cook, it is really superb. Now, what can I do for you?" "Tank you, sar! I tinks if de Commander would only be so kind as to give me a clean shirt, I shall be very tankful. He see dis one be very dirty, and I gets no time to vash him." "Certainly, cook, you shall have two." "Tank you, sar!"--and he bends himself half double, meaning it for a bow, and goes back well pleased to his stove and his coppers. Our cook is quite a character. He is much the oldest man on board, and is the most singular mixture of adverse moral qualities that I have ever chanced to meet. He makes it his boast that he has never been off the ship's deck since leaving Boston. "Vat should I go ashore for?" said he, one day, to some of the officers who were reciting to him the wonders of the land. "Me go ashore! De land be very good place to grow de vegetables, but it no place to be. I never goes ashore ven I can help it, and please my Hebenly Fader I never vill." [Sidenote: A CHEERFUL EVENING.]