affairs seemed to take a sudden boom, but we wandered five months in confusion and misery, then at last, through the merest trail, discovered an outlet from this icy hell. Birds sailed above, monstrous feathered creatures, shrieking and flapping their huge wings as though to attract attention. Later, a great flock like an enormous black cloud, sailed over diagonally in a southerly direction. We decided to follow the birds, possibly it was death, but in the present predicament, death was a certainty. Cautiously, persistently we advanced, slowly conquering our awful difficulties. This encouraged us, and congratulating each other, we redoubled our efforts, and in three weeks were freed of the hellish blockade. We yelled, mad with joy, and looked upon the grandest sight man ever viewed. Before us an interminable expanse of ocean, whose waters were the clearest, most limpid green, with billows soaring mountain high, crested with the most delicate tracery of foaming lace, yet the strength, suction contained in those voluminous waves was terrifying, magnificent, seeming to increase with monstrous power as though to engulf the universe. Far to the north was the stifling, frozen world, and from the vast unit giant floes constantly broke and parted to be borne swiftly southward by the powerful current. And to the south as far as the eye reached, this mighty ocean roared and boomed in superb grandeur and solitude, banked by a level coast of ice and snow. We followed the coast line. Saxe. indulged in calculations, figuring that with even travel we should be rid of this “infernal snow region” in about eight weeks. He informed us this great body of water was a continuation of the Arctic ocean, and we had been traveling all along over its petrified, or frozen surface; it was his opinion that at present we were drifting southward upon a huge floe. Possibly he believed this, but I have always thought he wished to excite Saunders, who had been unusually silent of late. Sheldon, wide-awake and understanding, suggested we had doubled on our tracks and were now invading an undiscovered portion of Greenland. It occurred to him (Sheldon) there was something familiar about the scenery. But Saunders wouldn’t bite, and muttered something to the effect that he “didn’t give a d——.” Sheldon chuckled knowingly.