to accommodate ourselves to circumstances, and prepare for
the campaign."

"I suppose the first thing we shall have to do is to build a
snow-house," said Benjy, looking ruefully round, for, as usual, he was
depressed by first appearances.

"Just so, Benjy; and the sooner we go to work the better."

Now, the reader must not hastily conclude that we are about to inflict
on him or her a detailed narrative of a six months' residence at the
North Pole. We have no such fell design. Much though there is to
tell,--much of suffering, more of enjoyment, many adventures, numerous
stirring incidents, and not a few mishaps--we shall pass over the most
of it in total silence, and touch only on those points which are worthy
of special notice.

Let us leap, then, into the very middle of the Arctic winter. It is
continuously dark now. There is no day at all at the Pole; it is night
all round. The last glimmer of the departing sun left them months ago;
the next glimmer of his return will not reach them for months to come.
The northern Eskimos and their English visitors were well aware of that,
nevertheless there was nothing of gloom or depressed spirits among them.
They were too busy for that. Had not meat to be procured, and then
consumed? Did not the procuring involve the harnessing of dogs in
sledges, the trapping of foxes and wolves, the fighting of walruses, the
chasing of polar bears; and did not the consuming thereof necessitate
much culinary work for the women, much and frequent attention and labour
on the part of the whole community, not to mention hours, and sometimes
days, of calm repose?

Then, as to light, had they not the Aurora Borealis, that mysterious
shimmering in the northern sky which has puzzled philosophers from the
beginning of time, and is not unlikely to continue puzzling them to the
end? Had they not the moon and the stars, which latter shone with a
brilliancy almost indescribable, and among them the now doubly
interesting Pole star, right overhead, with several new and gorgeous
constellations unknown to southern climes?

Besides all this, had not Captain Vane his scientific investigations,
his pendulum experiments, his wind-gauging, his ozone testing, his
thermometric, barometric, and chronometric observations, besides what
Benjy styled his kiteometric pranks? These last consisted in attempts
to bring lightning down from the clouds by means of a kite and cord, and
in which effort the Captain ma