The Winter Night. 353 



spite of constant northerly winds since Monday. There 

 is something very singular about this. Is it, as I have 

 thought all along from the appearance of the clouds and 

 the haziness of the air, that there has been south wind in 

 the south, preventing the drift of the ice that way, or 

 have we at last come under the influence of a current ? 

 That shove we got to the south lately in the face of 

 southerly winds was a remarkable thing, and so is our 

 remaining where we are now in spite of the northerly 

 ones. It would seem that new powers of some kind 

 must be at work. 



" To-day another noteworthy thing happened, which 

 was that about midday we saw the sun, or, to be more 

 correct, an image of the sun, for it was only a mirage. 

 A peculiar impression was produced by the sight of 

 that glowing fire lit just above the outermost edge of 

 the ice. According to the enthusiastic descriptions 

 given by many Arctic travellers of the first appearance 

 of this god of life after the long winter night, the 

 impression ought to be one of jubilant excitement ; but 

 it was not so in my case. We had not expected to see 

 it for some days yet, so that my feeling was rather one 

 of pain, of disappointment, that we must have drifted 

 farther south than we thought. So it was with pleasure 

 I soon discovered that it could not be the sun itself. 

 The mirage was at first like a flattened-out glowing red 

 streak of fire on the horizon ; later there were two 

 streaks, the one above the other, with a dark space 



2 A 



