e air, that there has been south wind in the south, preventing
the drift of the ice that way, or have we at last come under the
influence of a current? That shove we got to the south lately in
the face of southerly winds was a remarkable thing, and so is our
remaining where we are now in spite of the northerly ones. It would
seem that new powers of some kind must be at work. "To-day another
noteworthy thing happened, which was that about midday we saw the
sun, or, to be more correct, an image of the sun, for it was only
a mirage. A peculiar impression was produced by the sight of that
glowing fire lit just above the outermost edge of the ice. According
to the enthusiastic descriptions given by many Arctic travellers of
the first appearance of this god of life after the long winter night,
the impression ought to be one of jubilant excitement; but it was
not so in my case. We had not expected to see it for some days yet,
so that my feeling was rather one of pain, of disappointment, that
we must have drifted farther south than we thought. So it was with
pleasure I soon discovered that it could not be the sun itself. The
mirage was at first like a flattened-out glowing red streak of fire
on the horizon; later there were two streaks, the one above the other,
with a dark space between; and from the main-top I could see four, or
even five, such horizontal lines directly over one another, and all
of equal length; as if one could only imagine a square dull-red sun
with horizontal dark streaks across it. An astronomical observation we
took in the afternoon showed that the sun must in reality have been 2 deg.
22' below the horizon at noon; we cannot expect to see its disk above
the ice before Tuesday at the earliest: it depends on the refraction,
which is very strong in this cold air. All the same, we had a small
sun-festival this evening, on the occasion of the appearance of its
image--a treat of figs, bananas, raisins, almonds, and gingerbread.

"Sunday, February 18th. I went eastward yesterday on snow-shoes, and
found a good snow-shoeing and driving road out to the flats that lie
in that direction. There is a pretty bad bit first, with hummocks and
pressure-ridges, and then you come out on these great wide plains,
which seem to extend for miles and miles to the north, east, and
southeast. To-day I drove out there with eight dogs; the driving
goes capitally now; some of the others followed on snow-shoes. Still
northerly wind. Th