5. About 4 P.M. the pressure moderated; an hour afterwards there was a calm, and with more composure we could now survey our position. The carpenter shovelled away the snow from the deck in order to inspect the seams. They were still uninjured. The knees and cross-beams still held, and no very great quantity of water was found in the hold. This result we owed solely to the strength of our ship and to her fine lines, which enabled her to rise when nipped and pressed, while her interior, so well laden as to become a solid body, increased her powers of resistance. Everything was again restored to its place, so that it was possible to go up and down the cabin stairs without great difficulty, and in the evening the water in the hold, which had risen 13 inches, was pumped out to its normal depth of 6 inches. We went down into the cabin to rest, but though thankful and joyful for the issue, our minds were clouded with care and anxiety. Henceforth we regarded every noise with suspicious apprehensions, like a population which lives within an area of earthquakes. The long winter nights and their fearful cold were before us; we were drifting into unknown regions, utterly uncertain of the end. When night came, we fell asleep with our clothes on, though our sleep was disturbed every now and then by onsets of the ice, recurring less frequently and in diminished force; but daily—and for _one hundred and thirty days_—we went through the same experiences in greater or lesser measure, almost always in sunless darkness. It was, however, a fortunate circumstance for us that we encountered the first assaults of the ice at a time when we were still able to see; for instead of the calm preparations we were able to make, hurry and confusion would have been inevitable had these assaults surprised us amid the Polar darkness. [Illustration: AN OCTOBER NIGHT IN THE ICE.]