Through the kindness and generosity of our friends, and of those who more especially interested themselves in the progress of Arctic discovery, we received many useful and valuable gifts. Her Majesty and the members of the Royal Family testified, in a substantial manner, the deep interest they took in the enterprize. The name of her Imperial Majesty the Empress Eugénie must always be associated with the expedition as one of its warmest friends. Her kind and considerate present, consisting of a fine woollen cap for each individual, contributed materially to our comfort whilst engaged in the onerous duties of sledging. To mention the names of all our generous benefactors would require a chapter to itself. Books, magic lanterns, a piano, pictures, and money came pouring in from all sides; but smaller and less valuable, though not the less appreciated, gifts were also received. A small case, with the superscription, "A Christmas box for my friends on board the 'Alert,'" and containing four bottles of excellent punch, and a little parcel of well-thumbed books and periodicals, showing undoubted signs of having been well perused, but which came with the "best wishes of a warrant officer, himself an old Arctic explorer," were accepted with as much pleasure and gratitude as were the more costly presents. Games of all descriptions, to while away the long evenings of a dark and monotonous winter, were purchased; whilst a complete set of instruments for a drum-and-fife band was also added to the long list of our necessaries. In devoting a certain sum of money to the purchase of musical instruments and games, wherewithal to amuse ourselves, we were only following an example set us many years ago; for when Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed in 1583, for the purpose of discovering new lands, and planting Christian colonies upon those large and ample countries extending northward from Florida, we read that, "for the solace of our people, and allurement of the savages, we were provided of musicke in good varietie; not omitting the least toyes, as morris dancers, hobby horses, and many like conceits, to delight the savage people, whom we intended to winne by all faire meanes possible." We also hear, when that brave old navigator John Davis undertook his first voyage in 1585, with his two frail little barks, the "Sunneshine" and the "Mooneshine," that in the first-named vessel were twenty-three persons, of whom four were musicians--a large band in proportion to the complement of officers and men.