pair of strong
arms. Here I sit, whining like an old woman. Did I not know all this
before I started? Things have not gone worse than I expected, but,
on the contrary, rather better. Where is now the serene hopefulness
that spread itself in the daylight and the sun? Where are those proud
imaginings now that mounted like young eagles towards the brightness of
the future? Like broken-winged, wet crows they leave the sunlit sea,
and hide themselves in the misty marshes of despondency. Perhaps it
will all come back again with the south wind; but, no--I must go and
rummage up one of the old philosophers again.

"There is a little pressure this evening, and an observation just
taken seems to indicate a drift of 3' south.

"11 P.M. Pressure in the opening astern. The ice is cracking and
squeezing against the ship, making it shake.

"Monday, February 19th. Once more it may be said that the night is
darkest just before the dawn. Wind began to blow from the south
to-day, and has reached a velocity of 13 feet per second. We did
some ice-boring this morning, and found that the ice to port is 5
feet 11-5/8 inches (1.875 metres) thick, with a layer of about 1
1/2 inches of snow over it. The ice forward was 6 feet 7 1/2 inches
(2.08 metres) thick, but a couple of inches of this was snow. This
cannot be called much growth for quite a month, when one thinks that
the temperature has been down to 58 deg. Fahr. below zero.

"Both to-day and yesterday we have seen the mirage of the sun again;
to-day it was high above the horizon, and almost seemed to assume
a round, disk-like form. Some of the others maintain that they have
seen the upper edge of the sun itself; Peter and Bentzen, that they
have seen at least half of the disk, and Juell and Hansen declare
that the whole of it was above the horizon. I am afraid it is so long
since they saw it that they have forgotten what it is like.

"Tuesday, February 20th. Great sun festival to-day without any
sun. We felt certain we should see it, but there were clouds on the
horizon. However, we were not going to be cheated out of our festival;
we can hold another on the occasion of really seeing it for the first
time. We began with a grand rifle practice in the morning; then there
was a dinner of three or four courses and 'Fram wine,' otherwise
lime-juice, coffee afterwards with 'Fram cake.' In the evening
pineapple, cake, figs, bananas, and sweets. We go off to bed feeling
that we have over-eate