Much later in the winter--indeed in the month of March--a succession of furious gales quite smothered us; the drift piled up as high as the top of the winter housing, which was fifteen feet above the deck, and then blew over to leeward, filling up on that side likewise; whilst we, unable to face the storm without, could only prevent the housing from being broken in, by placing props of planks and spars to support the superincumbent weight. We had actually to dig our way out of the vessel; and I know not how we should have freed the poor smothered craft, had not Nature assisted us, by the breaking down of the floe. This at first threatened to injure and strain the "Pioneer," for, firmly held as she was all round, the vessel was immersed some two feet deeper than she ought to have been by the subsiding ice. We set to work, however, to try and liberate her, when one night a series of loud reports awakened me, and the quarter-master at the same time ran down to say, in his quaint phraseology, that "she was a going off!" a fact of which there was no doubt, as, with sudden surges, the "Pioneer" overcame the hold the floe had taken of her poor sides, and after some time she floated again at her true water-line; while the mountain of snow around us had sunk to the level of the floe, and at first formed enormously thick ice; but this in time, by the action of the under-currents of warm water, reduced itself to the ordinary thickness of the adjoining floe. [Headnote: _WINTER EMPLOYMENTS._] Before we enter upon the subject of returning spring, and the new occupations and excitement which it called forth, let me try to convey an idea of a day spent in total darkness, as far as the sun was concerned.