* * * * *

V.--ON THE ICE.

Despite the fire made on the iron plate in the middle of the tent,
our adventurers found the cold at this point of their journey most
poignant. It was about Christmas; but the exact time of year had
little to do with the matter. The wind was northerly, and keen: and
they often at night had to rise and promote circulation by a good run
on the snow. But early on the third day all was ready for a start.
The sun was seen that morning on the edge of the horizon for a short
while, and promised soon to give them days. Before them were a line
of icebergs, seemingly an impenetrable wall; but it was necessary
to brave them. The dogs, refreshed by two days of rest, started
vigorously, and a plain hill of ice being selected, they succeeded
in reaching its summit. Then before them lay a vast and seemingly
interminable plain. Along this the sledges ran with great speed; and
that day they advanced nearly thirty miles from the land, and camped
on the sea in a valley of ice.

It was a singular spot. Vast sugar-loaf hills of ice, as old perhaps
as the world, threw their lofty cones to the skies, on all sides,
while they rested doubtless on the bottom of the ocean. Every
fantastic form was there; there seemed in the distance cities and
palaces as white as chalk; pillars and reversed cones, pyramids and
mounds of every shape, valleys and lakes; and under the influence of
the optical delusions of the locality, green fields and meadows, and
tossing seas. Here the whole party rested soundly, and pushed on hard
the next day in search of land.