"With Pym it may not have been a love that would have carried him safely into and through a beatific old age--or it may have been; we choose to think that it was a growth that would have bloomed perennially. It was, I think, such a love as every man of imagination feels to be a mountain of wealth beside which all else is dwarfed to utter nothingness--a concretion from the endless and eternal ocean of love--a glimpse into that paradise where exists the Almighty, who is Love. "I should judge from what Peters knows well enough, but which I gleaned by patient toil from that wicked though unsophisticated old segment of intelligence, that these two young persons had a most delightful, though extremely peculiar, wedding journey. The months had flown, until it was again December--the antarctic midsummer month, in which, and the greater part of January, there is no night. "At this, the delightful season of the antarctic year, a beautiful yacht-like vessel was equipped; and with Peters as captain, and four men under his orders; Lilama, and a lady friend, with two maids; and Pym, accompanied by his now close friend, Diregus, the journey began. "To Peters' mind, the most remarkable part of this pleasure excursion, was the extreme differences in climatic conditions which the party experienced within the range of a single day's, or even a single hour's travel. In December and January, Hili-li was so warm as scarcely to be habitable--certainly not comfortably habitable for natives of the central temperate zone of North America; yet at this same period of time, there was a small island on the meridian of Hili-li, and only thirty miles from the large surface-crater, on which the temperature was about 65° F. There was, just across 'The Mountain'--as the Hili-lites frequently spoke of the rings of mountain-ranges surrounding the central crater--an island of somewhat greater area, upon which ice was at all times to be found at a few feet above sea-level, and which, during eight months of the year, was so cold that no animal life could have existed upon it. Then, at variable distances from the crater, and in different directions, islands were to be found of almost any desired temperature. The wealthier Hili-lites owned summer residences on these out-lying islands, situated at sailing distances varying from an hour to six hours' travel from Hili-li. "The wedding-party, owing to the social position or the personal qualities of its members--which included official rank, hereditary prestige, beauty, mental culture, and preternatural prowess--was everywhere warmly welcomed. It was expected, received with open arms, and every source of entertainment was exhausted to make its visit at each island enjoyable.