ing
for it to do? Here we drift forward, and here we drift back, and now
we have been two months on the same spot.

"Everything, however, is being got ready for a possible expedition,
or for the contingency of its becoming necessary to abandon the
ship. All the hand-sledges are lashed together, and the iron fittings
carefully seen to. Six dog-sledges are also being made, and to-morrow
we shall begin building kayaks ready for the men. They are easy to
draw on hand-sledges in case of a retreat over the ice without the
ship. For a beginning we are making kayaks to hold two men each. I
intend to have them about 12 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 18 inches
in depth. Six of these are to be made. They are to be covered with
sealskin or sail-cloth, and to be decked all over, except for two
holes--one for each man.

"I feel that we have, or rather shall have, everything needful for
a brilliant retreat. Sometimes I seem almost to be longing for a
defeat--a decisive one--so that we might have a chance of showing
what is in us, and putting an end to this irksome inactivity.

"Monday, July 30th. Westerly wind, with northwesterly by way of a
pleasant variety; such is our daily fare week after week. On coming
up in the morning I no longer care to look at the weathercock on the
masthead, or at the line in the water; for I know beforehand that
the former points east or southeast, and the line in the contrary
direction, and that we are ever bearing to the southeast. Yesterday
it was 81 deg. 7' north latitude, the day before 81 deg. 11', and last Monday,
July 25th, 81 deg. 26'.

"But it occupies my thoughts no longer. I know well enough there
will be a change some time or other, and the way to the stars
leads through adversity. I have found a new world; and that is
the world of animal and plant life that exists in almost every
fresh-water pool on the ice-floes. From morning till evening and
till late in the night I am absorbed with the microscope, and see
nothing around me. I live with these tiny beings in their separate
universe, where they are born and die, generation after generation;
where they pursue each other in the struggle for life, and carry on
their love affairs with the same feelings, the same sufferings, and
the same joys that permeate every living being from these microscopic
animalcules up to man--self-preservation and propagation--that is the
whole story. Fiercely as we human beings struggle to push our way
on through th