After having gathered all the provisions we could find at the wreck, such as bread, flour, and molasses, we judged that with economy, and with ordinary allowance, it would last the ship's company three or four months. But the great drawback which we apprehended, and which we found to be true, was, the natives acted as if they had as good a right to our provisions as we had ourselves. They not only joined us in eating what belonged to us, but they took what they wanted, both openly and secretly. The weather continued quite moderate, we should judge, for this region of the north, not intensely cold, still gradually increasing, until the 17th of November. While the sea was open, whales were very plenty. They came near the shore where our settlement was located, and sported among the breakers, and in some instances, would rest their huge heads upon the rocks, just on the surface of the water. About this time, a very severe gale of wind blew from the north, more furious and winterish than had occurred since our abode in this region, accompanied with a heavy fall of snow. The wind was so violent that it prostrated several native huts. This storm was doubtless a forerunner of winter indeed, and which brought from the remote wastes of the Northern Sea vast quantities of ice, which, in connection with that which had been forming along the coast, closed up the whole ocean as far as the eye could reach. Indeed, all water entirely disappeared. This was an uncommon and singular feature in our experience of an arctic winter. It thus began in earnest to put on the sterner and more terrible attributes of dreariness and desolation. There was something profoundly dreadful and awe-inspiring in the giant march of a polar winter, prodigious in its increase of snow and the vast accumulation of ice. It was upon a scale of operation so sublime and awful as to baffle all human description, and throw wholly into the shade, as absolutely insignificant, the intensest winter ever experienced in our native country. It is utterly impossible to give to any one who has not shared somewhat in the tremendous reality of the scene a just conception of it. The sun was now falling rapidly, and showing its bright disk only a few hours above the horizon. The nights were very long, and the days were becoming shorter and shorter. It seemed as if the luminary of day was indisposed to throw abroad his own rays upon a region of the earth's surface where either human or animal life could with so much difficulty exist. In a few weeks, the sun had wholly disappeared, though his track of light could be distinctly traced in his course below a section of the horizon; but still it was becoming fainter and fainter, until total darkness and a long night of nearly a month enveloped the outward world, as well as enshrouded our own minds in indescribable gloom and sadness.