476 Chapter VIII. 



life. It is really neither life nor death, but a state 

 between the two. It means never being at rest about 

 anything or in any place a constant waiting for what is 

 coming ; a waiting in which, perhaps, the best years of 

 one's manhood will pass. It is like what a young boy 

 sometimes feels when he goes on his first voyage. The 

 life on board is hateful to him ; he surfers cruelly from all 

 the torments of sea-sickness ; and being shut in within 

 the narrow walls of the ship is worse than prison ; but 

 it is something that has to be gone through. Beyond it 

 all lies the south, the land of his youthful dreams, tempt- 

 ing with its sunny smile. In time he arises, half dead. 

 Does he find his south ? How often it is but a barren 

 desert he is cast ashore on ! ' 



" Sunday, October 7th. It has cleared up this 

 evening, and there is a starry sky and aurora borealis. 

 It is a little change from the constant cloudy weather, 

 with frequent snow-showers, w r hich we have had these 

 last days. 



"Thoughts come and thoughts go. I cannot forget, 

 and I cannot sleep. Everything is still ; all are asleep. 

 I only hear the quiet step of the watch on deck ; the 

 wind rustling in the rigging and the canvas, and the 

 clock gently hacking the time in pieces there on the wall. 

 If I go on deck there is black night, stars sparkling 

 high overhead, and faint aurora flickering across the 

 gloomy vault, and out in the darkness I can see the 

 glimmer of the great monotonous plain of the ice, it is all 



