THE WINTER NIGHT 395 



farther south than we thought. So it was with pleasure 

 I soon discovered that it could not be the sun itself. 

 The miraore was at first like a flattened-out orlowinor red 

 streak of fire on the horizon ; later there were two 

 streaks, the one above the other, with a dark space 

 between; and from the main -top I could see four, or 

 even five, such horizontal lines directly over one another, 

 and all of equal length ; as if one could only imagine 

 a square dull-red sun with horizontal dark streaks across 

 it. An astronomical observation we took in the after- 

 noon showed that the sun must in reality have been 

 2° 22' below the horizon at noon; we cannot expect to 

 see its disk above the ice before Tuesday at the earliest : 

 it depends on the refraction, which is very strong in this 

 cold air. All the same, we had a small sun -festival 

 this evening, on the occasion of the appearance of its 

 image — a treat of figs, bananas, raisins, almonds, and 

 gingerbread. 



"Sunday, February iSth. I went eastward yester- 

 day on snow-shoes, and found a good snow-shoeing and 

 driving road out to the flats that lie in that direction. 

 There is a pretty bad bit first, with hummocks and 

 pressure-ridges, and then you come out on these great 

 wide plains, which seem to extend for miles and miles 

 to the north, east, and southeast. To-day I drove 

 out there with eight dogs; the driving goes capitally 

 now; some of the others followed on snow-shoes. Still 

 northerly wind. This is slow work; but anyhow we are 



