and yet believed to be the rush of the air in the sphere of the
phenomenon. A few minutes more and all had disappeared.

After a hearty meal, the wanderers launched into the usual topics
of conversation in those regions. Sakalar was not a boaster,
but the young men from Nijnei-Kolimsk were possessed of the
usual characteristics of hunters and fishermen. They told with
considerable vigor and effect long stories of their adventures, most
exaggerated--and when not impossible, most improbable--of bears killed
in hand to hand combat, of hundreds of deer slain in the crossing of
a river, and of multitudinous heaps of fish drawn in one cast of a
seine: and then, wrapped in their thick clothes and every one's feet
to the fire, the whole party soon slept. Ivan and Kolina, however,
held whispered converse together for a little while, but fatigue soon
overcame even them.

The next day they advanced still farther toward the pole, and on the
evening of the third camped within a few yards of the great Frozen
Sea. There it lay before them, scarcely distinguishable from the land.
As they looked upon it from a lofty eminence, it was hard to believe
that that was a sea before them. There was snow on the sea and snow on
the land: there were mountains on both, and huge drifts, and here and
there vast _polinas_--a space of soft, watery ice, which resembled the
lakes of Siberia. All was bitter, cold, sterile, bleak, and chilling
to the eye, which vainly sought a relief. The prospect of a journey
over this desolate plain, intersected in every direction by ridges
of mountain icebergs, full of crevices, with soft salt ice here and
there, was dolorous indeed; and yet the heart of Ivan quaked not. He
had now what he sought in view; he knew there was land beyond, and
riches, and fame.