220 Chapter VI. 



hours or four hours, the watch had to go aloft or on to 

 the ice to take the meteorological observations. 



I believe I may safely say that on the whole the time, 

 passed pleasantly and imperceptibly, and that we throve 

 in virtue of the regular habits imposed upon us. 



My notes from clay to day will give the best idea 

 of our life, in all its monotony. They are not great 

 events thmt are here recorded, but in their very bareness 

 they give a true picture. Such, and no other, was 

 our life. I shall give some quotations direct from my 

 diary : 



" Tuesday, September 26th. Beautiful weather. 

 The sun stands much lower now ; it was 9 above the 

 horizon at midday. \Yinter is rapidly approaching ; 

 there are 14^ of frost this evening, but we do not feel it 

 cold. To-day's observations unfortunately show no 



j j 



particular drift northwards ; according to them we are 

 still in 78 50' north latitude. I wandered about over the 

 floe towards evening. Nothing more wonderfully beau- 

 tiful can exist than the Arctic night. It is dreamland, 

 painted in the imagination's most delicate tints ; it is 

 colour etherealised. One shade melts into the other, so 

 that you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins, 

 and yet they are all there. No forms it is all faint, 

 dreamy colour music, a far-away, long-drawn-out melody 

 on muted strings. Is not all life's beauty high, and 

 delicate, and pure like this night ? Give it brighter 

 colours, and it is no longer so beautiful. The sky is like 



