THE END OF A TOUGH YARN. 91 



a place where the traitors to kindred and country endure a new torment. So again 

 Shakespeare, in the well-known soliloquy 



"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 

 To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 

 This sensible warm motion to become 

 A kneaded clod ; and the de-lighted* spirit 

 To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 

 In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice." 



The narrator goes on to say that it is usual to make ice idols or ice demons for their 

 carnivals; and ice palaces like those often constructed in Russia are also common in winter. 

 He further says that Greenland extends to the Pole and far beyond it, and ends his 

 narrative by stating that at the date on which he writes May 22nd, 1861 he had been 

 eleven months on the polar continent, and had no desire to leave it. 



So much for a canard, amusing at least from the mock earnestness of the writer. 

 But that a detached colony of descendants from the Northmen might be found at some 

 more distant point of Greenland with which we are at present not familiar, is at least 

 possible, and that the climate of the Pole is comparatively temperate has been the belief 

 of some authorities, although, most assuredly, the intense cold experienced by the 

 expedition under Captain Nares at the high latitude attained will not bear out the 

 assertion. 



CHAPTER X. 



CRUISE OF THE "PANDORA." 



The Arctic Expedition of 1875-6 Its Advocates The Alert and JDiscocery Cruise of the Pandora-Curious Icebergs The 

 First Bump with the Ice Seal Meat as a Luxury Ashore on a Floe- Coaling at Ivigtut The Kryolitc Trade Beauty 

 of the Greenland Coast in Summer-Festivities at Disco The Belles of Greenland-A novel Ball-room The dreaded 

 Melville Bay Scene of Ruin at Northumberland House Devastation of the Bears An Arctic Graveyard Beset by the 

 Ice An Interesting Discovery Furthest Point attained Return Voyage A Dreadful Night The Phantom Cliff- 

 Home again. 



THE Arctic expedition of 1875 6 has been the subject of very general interest, and has 

 led to much comment and some adverse criticism. With the latter we have little or nothing: 



O 



to do. If a certain amount of disappointment exists regarding the still undiscovered Pole, 

 let the reader remember that no Arctic expedition whatever has yet fulfilled all the promises 

 and hopes of its youth, and that our brave seamen have taken our flag to a higher point 

 than ever attained before. Britain is again foremost, and the names of Nares and Markham 

 stand worthily by the side of Hall and Parry. The conditions under which they made 

 their success were, in some respects, of unparalleled difficulty and hardship. 



The renewa' of English enterprise in the direction of the Pole was not due to sudden 

 caprice, but was greatly stimulated by the generous rivalry of other nations. Several 



* De-lighted i.e., deprived of light. 



