240 
LANCASTER SOUND, 
ual audience, but they listen with apparent interest, 
and express themselves gratefully. 
'^November 25. Great clouds of dark vapor were seen 
to the southward to-day, the crape-wreaths of our first 
imprisonment. This frost-smoke is an unfailing indi- 
cation of open water, and to us, poor prison-hound va- 
grants, is suggestive of things not pleasant to think 
about. It streamed away on the wind in black drifts. 
" Our daylight to-day was a mere name, three and 
a half hours of meagre twilight. I was struck for the 
first time with the bleached faces of my mess-mates. 
The sun left uis finally only sixteen days ago ; but for 
some time before he had been very chary of his effect- 
ive rays ; and our abiding-place below has a smoky 
atmosphere of lamplit unoomfortableness. No wonder 
we grow pale with such a cosmetic. Seventy-seven 
days more without a sunrise ! twenty-six before we 
reach the solstitial point of greatest darkness ! 
" The temperature continues singularly mild. Par- 
ry, at Melville Island, had —47° before this, twenty de- 
grees lower than our minimum ; and even in the more 
southern regions of Port Bowen and Prince Regent's 
Straits, the cold was much greater. For some days 
now, zero has not been an uncommon temperature; 
and to-day we are in —14°, here far from unpleasantly 
cold. May not much of this moderated intensity of 
the weather be referred to the influence of the open 
water around us ? 
"AVe are still in our old neighborhood, at the brink 
of the channel, a mile or so from Cape Hiley, and both 
shores in view. 
'■'•November 28. The sunlight, a mere band of red 
cloud ; the day, a poor apology. Walked eastward 
toward Beechy Island, dimly seen. The ice river is 
