Arthur jump up with a remark about "ante-arctic niggers," or "gee
whallopin big females." I had occasion later to know that my caution was
most judicious, and to condemn myself for a want of firmness in
maintaining so sensible a decision.

Doctor Bainbridge, without unnecessary delay or preliminary remark,
began the relation of Peters' adventures at the point indicated by him
the evening before as the proper place of commencement.

"The great white curtain you have no doubt already surmised to be a
clear-cut line of dense fog, due to the fact that a perpendicular plane
of extremely cold air in that situation cuts through an atmosphere
which, on both sides of this sheet of frigid air, is exceedingly warm,
and laden with moisture to the saturation-point. This curtain of fog is
so thin that sudden gusts of wind, upon either of its surfaces, drive it
aside much as a double curtain is thrown on either side by the arms of a
person passing between. It was through such an opening that Pym and
Peters rushed, on a cross-current of warm water which was carrying them
along. The figure of a large, pure-white woman, into whose arms their
half-delirious fancies pictured them as rushing, was simply a large
statue of spotless marble, which stands at the entrance of the bay of
Hili-li. The ash-like material which for days had rained upon them and
into the ocean around them, was no longer seen. It proved to have been a
peculiar volcano dust or crater ash, which, carried into the upper air,
fell at a distance--sometimes directly on Hili-li; but rarely so close
as within eighty or ninety miles of the central fire.

"They had scarcely passed the white fog-curtain when they were accosted
by a gay party of young men and young women, numbering some eight or ten
persons, in an elegant pleasure-boat. Pym and Peters being ignorant of