impossible to bore. Finding all my efforts useless at this end, I went
to the other. Appearances were not promising; still I would not allow
myself to believe that by some means or other I might not work my way
out of my icy prison. Not a moment was to be lost; my friends might go
away and suppose I had perished, or I might be starved or exhausted
before I could reach the open air. It was a great thing having a little
space to start from, though it was little enough. I set to work at
once, therefore, with my axe, and began chopping away at the ice. My
idea was to cut myself out a circular shaft, and thus, like a mole, work
my way up. I chopped and chopped away, and when I had cut a couple of
feet out of the mass, I carried the chips to the farther end of the
cave; my object in doing this was to obtain sufficient air to breathe,
for I found that I very soon consumed what there was in the cave, and
that the heat of my body had already begun to melt the ice above me. I
suffered, therefore, rather from heat than from cold; I went chopping on
till I had space enough in which to stand upright. This was a very
great advantage; I felt most encouraged, and could now work with far
greater ease than at first, when I had to be on my back, and to chop
away above me. I felt very thankful that I was not a miner, either in a
coal, iron, or lead mine.

Sometimes as I was working away I fancied that I head the voices of my
friends calling to me, but when I stopped there was again a perfect
silence. On I went again, but still it appeared as if I was as far as
ever from getting out of my prison. I had now cut my shaft as high as I
could reach, so I had to make steps in the walls on which I could stand
while I worked upwards. This I did till I had got up a dozen feet or
more. It showed me the great thickness of the block of ice which had
fallen above me, and how mercifully I had been preserved, for had it
come upon me, it would have crushed me as thin as a pancake. I was now
exposed to a new danger: should I fall as I was tunnelling away, I
should break my legs. I already had removed, as I said, a considerable
portion of the ice I had cut out to the other end of the cavern. I now
saw that it would be better not to remove any more; so, securing my
rifle at my back, and taking my pike in my left hand, which indeed I
found very useful in keeping me firm, I determined not again to descend,
but to continue working upwards as lon