464 Chapter VIII. 



tails. It is a picture of home and peace here near the 

 Pole, which one could watch by the hour. 



" Life goes its regular, even, uneventful way, quiet as 

 the ice itself ; and yet it is wonderful how quickly the 

 time passes. The equinox has come, the nights are 

 beginning to turn dark, and at noon the sun is only 

 9 degrees above the horizon. I pass the day busily here 

 in the work cabin, and often feel as if I were sitting 

 in my study at home, with all the comforts of civilisation 

 round me. If it were not for the separation, one could 

 be as well off here as there. Sometimes I forget where 

 I am. Not infrequently in the evening, when I have 

 been sitting absorbed in work, I have jumped up to 

 listen when the dogs barked, thinking to myself : who 

 can be coming ? Then I remember that I am not at 

 home, but drifting out in the middle of the frozen Polar 

 Sea, at the commencement of the second lono- Arctic 



O 



night. 



"The temperature has been down to i '4 F. below 

 zero ( 17 C.) to-day ; winter is coming on fast. There 

 is little drift just now, and yet we are in good spirits. 

 It was the same last autumn equinox ; but how many 

 disappointments we have had since then ! How terrible 

 it was in the later autumn when every calculation 

 seemed to fail, as we drifted farther and farther south ! 

 Not one bright spot on our horizon ! But such a time 

 will never come again. There may still be great 

 relapses ; there may be slow progress for a time ; but 



