Having got up a small fire with the assistance of the chips and scraps of wood that were plentifully scattered around, I placed my snow-shoes one on top of the other, and sat down on them,--a sort of preparatory step in my transition to civilization, for they had somewhat the effect of a cane- bottomed chair minus the legs and without a back. Then I filled my short black pipe from the seal-skin tobacco-pouch, the contents of which had so often assuaged my troubled spirit when I brooded over griefs which _then_ were immature, if not imaginary. It was a very pleasant smoke, I recollect,--so pleasant, that I rather congratulated myself upon my position; the only drawback to it being that I was shut out from a view of the town, as the wind and drift rendered it indispensable for comfort in smoking that I should keep strictly to leeward of my bulwark. Tobacco is notoriously a promoter of reflection; there must be something essentially retrospective in the nature of the weed. I retired upon the days of my boyhood, my legs and feet becoming clairvoyant of the corduroys and highlows of that happy period of my existence, as the revolving curls of pale smoke exhibited to me, with marvellous fidelity, many quaint successive _tableaux_ of the old familiar scenes of home,--sentimental, some of them,--comic, others,--like the domestic incidents revealed with exaggerations on the hazy field of a magic-lantern. I thought of my poor mother, and of the excellent parting advice she gave me,--but more particularly of the night-caps with strings, which she extracted such a solemn promise from me to wear carefully every night in all climates, and which, on the second evening of my sojourn in barracks, were so unceremoniously reduced to ashes in a noisy _auto-da-fé_. These retrospective pictures were succeeded by others of more modern date, coming round in a progressive series, until I had painted myself up to within a few weeks of my present position, the foreground of my existence. Then I remembered promises made by me of contributions to a certain album,--further contributions,--for I had already furnished several pages of it with food for mind and eye in the form of melancholy verses and "funny" sketches, with brief dramatic dialogues beneath the latter, to elucidate the "story." I particularly recollected having volunteered a translation or imitation of a pretty song in Ruy Blas; and as the fit was upon me, I produced my pocketbook, to commit to paper a version of it which I had mentally devised. The leaves of my book were all filled, however; some with memoranda,--a sort of savage diary it was,--some with sketches of scenes in the wilderness: there was not a corner vacant. Turning towards the planking of my bulwark, I perceived that it was smoothly planed and clean, and to work on it I went, pencil in hand. First I wrote "Zosime MacGillivray," in several different styles of chirography, flourished and plain, and even in old text. Then I sketched out a rough