d with a clean white cloth, which had been reserved for
the occasion. On the table stood the 'fir' tree, shining in the
splendour of many little wax-lights, and ornaments with all sorts of
little treasures, some of which, such as the gilded walnuts, had
already seen a Christmas in Germany; below the tree was a small
present for each of us, provided long beforehand, in readiness for
the day, by loving friends and relatives at home. There was a packet
too for each of the crew, containing some little joking gift, prepared
by the mirth-loving Dr. Pansch, and a useful present also; while the
officers were each and all remembered.

"When the lights burned down, and the resinous Andromeda was beginning
to take fire, the tree was put aside, and a feast began, at which full
justice was done to the costly Sicilian wine with which a friend had
generously supplied us before we left home. We had a dish of roast
seal! Some cakes were made by the cook, and the steward produced his
best stores. For the evening, the division between the fore and aft
cabins was removed, and there was free intercourse between officers
and men; many a toast was drunk to the memory of friends at home, and
at midnight a polar ball was improvised by a dance on the ice. The
boatswain, the best musician of the party, seated himself with his
hand-organ between the antlers of a reindeer which lay near the ship,
and the men danced two and two on their novel flooring of hard ice!

"Such was our experience of a Christmas in the north polar circle; but
the uncertainties of Arctic voyaging are great, and the two ships of
our expedition made trial of the widely different fates which await
the travellers in those frozen regions: and while we on the _Germania_
were singularly fortunate in escaping accidents and in keeping our
crew, in spite of some hardships, in sound health and good spirits,
the _Hansa_ was crushed by the ice, and her crew, after facing
unheard-of dangers, and passing two hundred days on a block of ice,
were barely rescued to return home."

Yet even to the crew of the ill-fated _Hansa_ Christmas brought some
festivities. The tremendous gale which had raged for many days ceased
just before the day, and the heavy fall of snow with which it
terminated, and which had almost buried the black huts that the
shipwrecked men had constructed for themselves upon the drifting
icebergs from the _debris_ of the wreck, had produced a considerable
rise in the temper