218 valentine's day. [chap. v. 



a feeling), the time since we left England, though 

 but eight months, seemed longer than any three 

 years of my former not unadventurous life. Days 

 were weeks, w T eeks months, months almost years. 

 As objects seen through a haze appear more 

 distant, so to me the past had a dim and shadowy 

 indistinctness which magnified its proportions. 

 There were no marks to separate one day from 

 another, no rule whereby to measure time ; all 

 was one dull and cheerless uniformity of dark 

 and cold. But from this date, on the contrary, 

 the successive days being occupied in active and 

 exciting employment, with continual novelties of 

 situation, and expectation of something to come, 

 seemed to fly with accelerated speed as each 

 brought us nearer to the termination of our im- 

 prisonment. But I return to my narrative. 



Our day of promise set in, it must be confessed, 

 unpromisingly enough ; for through the night a 

 breeze blew from the N. E., directly on the land, 

 and the mist and snow drift continued so thick, 

 that there was no possibility of seeing at what 

 part of the coast we were. The barometer too 

 kept falling, and the wind increasing. At noon, 

 soundings were obtained in one hundred and 

 thirty fathoms, but the sun was too obscure to 

 get an observation. About 2 h p. m. it being rather 

 squally, a lane of water was formed along the 

 edge of the floe one half round it, and the ice 



