.

Half an hour after we embarked a snow-storm came on, but still we pulled
along, preferring anything to resuming the snow-shoes.

After a few hours' rowing, we rested on our oars, and refreshed
ourselves with a slice of bread and a glass of rum--which latter, having
forgotten to bring water with us, we were obliged to drink pure. We
certainly cut a strange figure, while thus lunching in our little boat--
surrounded by ice, and looking hazy through the thickly falling snow,
which prevented us from seeing very far ahead, and made the mountains on
shore look quite spectral.

For about five miles we pulled along in a straight line, after which the
ice trended outwards, and finally brought us to a stand-still by running
straight out to sea. This was an interruption we were not at all
prepared for, and we felt rather undecided how to proceed. After a
little confabulation, we determined to pull out, and see if the ice did
not again turn in the proper direction; but after pulling straight out
for a quarter of a mile, we perceived, or imagined we perceived, to our
horror, that the ice, instead of being stationary, as we supposed it to
be, was floating slowly out to sea with the wind, and carrying us along
with it. No time was to be lost; so, wheeling about, we rowed with all
our strength for the shore, and after a pretty stiff pull gained the
solid ice. Here we hauled the flat up out of the water with great
difficulty, and once more put on our snow-shoes.

Our road still lay along shore, and, as the weather was getting colder,
we proceeded along much more easily than heretofore. In an hour or two
the snow ceased to fall, and showed us that the ice was _not_ drifting,
but that it ran so far out to sea that it would have proved a bar to our
further progress by water at any rate.

The last ten miles of our journey now lay before us; and we sat down,
before starting, to have another bite of bread and a pull at the rum
bottle; after which, we trudged along in silence. The peculiar
compression of my guide's lips, and the length of step that he now
adopted, showed me that he had made up his mind to get through the last
part of the journey without stopping; so, tightening my belt, and
bending my head forward, I plodded on, solacing myself as we advanced by
humming, "Follow, follow, over mountain,--follow, follow, over sea!"
etcetera.

About four or five o'clock in the afternoon, upon rounding a point, we
were a little ex