“As you can readily imagine, the life of a ship’s crew, ice-bound, during the long, dark, northern winter is not an enviable one. Suffice it to say that we got through it with probably less than the ordinary amount of hardship, and were very glad to catch a glimpse of the sun about the beginning of April, as it looked like a sign of release, though the captain did not think the ice would break up for at least six weeks longer. There was now some pleasure in rambling, as there were a few hours of sunlight to do it by, and I used to make the most of it, as one might get an occasional pop at a seal or otter, and not unfrequently the captain--we were by this time great chums--would accompany me. “One day in May we were tramping along, gun in hand, over the ice-fields, going over some new ground to the east of the ship, when we came upon a patch of remarkably clear and transparent ice, about a mile from the vessel. This was the more peculiar as the generality of the ice in our neighborhood was rough, jagged, opaque, and usually coated with snow. Looking down casually as we were crossing this patch, my eye was arrested by the curious spectacle of the body of a man embedded in the ice, some sixteen or eighteen feet below the surface. I called the captain’s attention to the phenomenon, and, getting down on our hands and knees, we spent a good while in examining the strange object as well as we could, and speculating upon how it could have got there. What puzzled us most was the white clothing upon the body, the captain’s theory being that it was the corpse of some officer of consequence, belonging, perhaps, to some government expedition, whose shroud had burst its canvas casing after being consigned to the deep, and which had afterward drifted there with the currents and frozen fast. I, however, whose eyes were keener, could see that the dress upon the body was no shroud, and that the features, instead of being livid, bloated, and swollen, like those of a corpse that had been some time in the water, were clear-cut, fresh, and untouched by decay. I became anxious to obtain a nearer view of this strange discovery, and at length prevailed upon the captain to let me have the use of half a dozen of the crew to dig down through the ice till I could satisfy my curiosity regarding it. Accordingly, next morning we set to work with pick and shovel to sink a shaft in the ice, and it was only the work of an hour or two before we were within two feet of the body.