“There is still, however, one solace left us, the solace of smoking. Some indeed have already exhausted their whole stock of tobacco. He who has half a pouch of it at his disposal is the object of general respect, and the man who can invite his neighbour to a pipe of tobacco and a pot of water is considered to do an act of profuse liberality. Tobacco becomes a medium of exchange among us, and provisions are bought and paid for with it, its value rising every day. There is no difference between day and night, and Sundays are only distinguished by dressing the boats with flags.” 17. In this enforced idleness passed away the days between the 9th and 15th inst., save that on the 14th we changed our place by three hundred yards, in order to select a more convenient spot for seal-hunting and to keep up the appearance of travelling—but in truth only the appearance, for in reality our situation had become truly dreadful. There were no events of sudden occurrence either to excite or alarm us, but time flowed on, and our constantly diminishing stock of provisions, like the steady movement of the hands of a clock, spoke with a plainness of speech, that could not be resisted, of the doom impending over us. Hitherto we had patiently endured the severe labours of dragging our heavily-laden boats and sledges from floe to floe, of launching the boats in the small fissures, and again drawing them on to the floes, when the ice became closely packed, often too carrying all the provisions and baggage as we slowly crept along. The least progress was sufficient to fill us with joy and thankfulness. Meanwhile the ice on all sides lay closely packed, and many times we had to wait for a week in our boats on a floe, till the “leads” were pleased to open, while every empty tin case proclaimed, with fearful distinctness, the diminishing of our provisions and the gloominess of our prospects; and now a steady wind from the south destroyed the little progress we had made. _After the lapse of two months of indescribable efforts, the distance between us and the ship was not more than nine English miles!_ The heights of Wilczek Island were still distinctly visible, and its lines of rocks shone with mocking brilliance in the ever-growing day-light. All things seemed to say that after a long struggle with the supremacy of the ice there remained for us but a despairing return to the ship and a third winter there, stript of every hope, and the Frozen Ocean for our grave!