LAND. 
367 
But to return to less ambitious topics. The birds, in 
spite of the increasing wind, fly over in numbers, all 
seeking the mysterious north. What is there at this 
unreached pole to attract and sustain such hordes of 
migratory life ? Since the day before yesterday, the 
16th, we can not be on deck at any hour, night or day 
— they are one now — without seeing small bodies, 
rather groups than flocks, on their way to the unknown 
feeding or breeding grounds. Toward the west the 
field of a telescope is constantly crossed by these de- 
tachments. The ducks are now scarce ; in fact, they 
have been few from the beginning. Geese are seen 
only in the forenoon and early morning. The guille- 
mots, also, are not so numerous as they were two days 
ago ; but from to-day we date the reappearance of the 
little Auk. This delicious little pilgrim is now on his 
way to his far north breeding grounds. Toward the 
open lead the groups fly low, sometimes doubtless 
pausing to refresh. At the water’s edge I shot five, 
the first game of the season ; and most valuable they 
were to our scurvy men. If this snow blindness per- 
mits me, I hope to-morrow to prove myself a more 
lucky sportsman. 
‘^Mmj 19, Monday. Jim Smith, little Jim Smith, 
reported ‘Land.’ We have become so accustomed to 
this great sameness of snow, that it was hard to real- 
ize at first the magnitude of our drift. Our last land 
was the spectral elevation upreared in the sunset sky 
of the 9th of February. The land itself must have 
been eighty miles off. Our drift, although now not 
absolutely fixed by observation, has probably carried 
us to within forty miles, perhaps thirty, of Cape Searle. 
Land it certainly is, shadowy, high, snow-covered, and 
strange. It is ninety-nine days since we looked at the 
