444 FARTHEST NORTH 



and then, otherwise I suppose we should become quite 

 stiff here in our winter lair. Fancy, only 12' (21^° P^ahr.) 

 of frost in the middle of December! We might almost 

 imaoine ourselves at home — foro-et that we were in a 

 land of snow to the north of the eighty-first parallel. 



"Thursday, December 12th. Between six and nine 

 this morning there were a number of shooting-stars, most 

 of them in Serpentarius. Some came right from the 

 Great Bear: afterwards they chiefly came from the Bull, 

 or Aldebaran, or the Pleiades. Several of them were very 

 bright, and some drew a streak of shining dust after 

 them. Lovely weather. Ikit night and day are now 

 equally dark. W^e walk up and down, up and down, on 

 the level, in the darkness. Heaven only knows how 

 many steps we shall take on that level before the winter 

 ends. Through the gloom we could see faintly only the 

 black cliffs, and the rocky ridges, and the great stones on 

 the beach, which the wind always sweeps clean. Above 

 us the sky, clear and brilliant with stars, sheds its peace 

 over the earth ; far in the west falls shower after shower 

 of stars, some faint, scarcely visible, others bright like 

 Roman candles, all with a message from distant worlds. 

 Low in the south lies a bank of clouds, now and again 

 outlined by the gleam of the northern lights ; but out 

 over the sea the sky is dark; there is open water there. 

 It is quite pleasant to look at it ; one does not feel so 

 sliut in ; it is like a connecting link with life, that dark 

 sea, the mighty artery of the world, which carries tidings 



