11. Christmas had come; the season when in the forests of our far-distant home the branches of the pine-trees are heavy laden with snow, and which ever comes back with the memories of the days of our youth, and with the remembrances of our families and absent friends. Only for a short time, about noon, we were made uneasy by a movement and pressure of the ice. But the alarm passed away, and we gathered together for a choice and gorgeous feast, both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and each of the cabin-mess had a bottle of good wine to himself. Carlsen and Lusina were our guests. Each of the crew received half a bottle of wine, together with a quarter of a bottle of “artificial wine,”[17] and in addition an allowance of grog, so weak, however, that even a baby might have drunk it without harm. Dried fish, roast bear well kept and seasoned, nuts and the like, contributed in their way to heighten the joyous feelings which, this day at least, animate even the most miserable of men. The dogs, at other times so insatiable, had for once enough and to spare, and carried off the fragments to bury them in the snow. The contents of a chest full of presents, which we had brought with us, were distributed by lot, and great was the delight of those who won a bottle of rum or a few cigars. 12. The last day of the year 1872 afforded us no very happy thoughts as we looked back on its events; it had been to us a year of disappointments. The comparison drawn between our actual condition and the expectations we had so ardently cherished seemed full of the bitterest irony. This day also, about noon, a pressure from the ice, which lasted but a short time, alarmed us all, and we rushed on deck to make our usual preparations. The enemy, however, passed away without further disturbance, and cheerfully and socially we awaited the first hour of the new year. With a bottle of champagne, one of the two still left, we meant to greet its coming in with that hopefulness of mind which seems inextinguishable in all the changes and chances of life. But the champagne, alas! proved a delusion. Klotz, the Tyrolese, in one of his brown studies exposed this precious bottle for four hours to a temperature of -19° F., and when he produced it the bottle had burst and the wine was thoroughly frozen. At midnight the crew serenaded us, and we afterwards marched forth in a body with torches, and walked round the ship, whose rigging glowed in the light of the tarred torches. The frosted fur garments of the men seemed edged with shining light, and a red glare fell on the masses of ice. [Illustration: CARLSEN MAKES THE ENTRY IN THE LOG.]