326 
LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. 
ice. In accordance, therefore, with my predetermined 
plan, we now began working to the southward, and the 
result fully justified my expectations. 
The sea became comparatively clear, as far as could 
be seen from the deck of the vessel; although small 
vagrant patches of ice that we came up with occa¬ 
sionally—as well as the temperature of the air and the 
sea—continued to indicate the proximity of larger bodies 
on either side of us. 
It was a curious sensation with which we had 
gradually learnt to contemplate this inseparable com¬ 
panion : it had become a part of our daily existence—an 
element—a thing without which the general aspect of 
the universe would be irregular and incomplete. It 
was the first thing we thought of in the morning, the 
last thing we spoke of at night. It glittered and 
grinned maliciously at us in the sunshine; it winked 
mysteriously through the stifling fog; it stretched itself 
like a prostrate giant—with huge, portentous shoulders, 
and shadowy limbs—right across our course; or danced 
gleefully in broken groups, in the little schooner’s 
wake. There was no getting rid of it, or forgetting it; 
and if—at night—-we sometimes returned in dreams to 
