By noon Cairn Hill was covered with expectant visitors, and well were they repaid for the trouble of the ascent. Although little of the sun could be seen above the distant land, we knew that it was there, and what we did see was bright, and _appeared_ with a slight stretch of the imagination to be warm! Romeo's words-- "Night's candles are burnt out, And jocund day stands Tip-toe on the misty mountain tops," were on our lips as we beheld the beautiful colours in the northern sky. The roseate tints blending with the violet seemed to belong more to southern climes than to the sterile inclement regions that we were inhabiting. The summits of the hills, the "misty mountain tops," were bathed in its glorious rays, whilst its luminous beams danced and glimmered along the distant ice-floes. It was a bright and glorious sight, and we remained long admiring it, and revelling in its rays--in fact, until warned by a peculiar sensation in our feet that the temperature was actually 100° below freezing-point; and however ecstatic we might feel at the reappearance of the sun, Jack Frost still reigned supreme, exacting implicit obedience to his will, and making those who disregarded his injunctions suffer for their heedlessness. Undoubtedly the Arctic Regions, and the farther north the better, would be a good place for Parsees; for none of the followers of Zoroaster could have exhibited more anxiety for the return, and more delight at the appearance, of their deity, than we did before and after the bright rays of the sun first fell upon us! Their god Fire would also receive, during the long cold Polar winter, the utmost homage and attention. Sun and Fire worshippers would require in these regions little to stimulate them to devotion. Strange to say, our extreme cold came with the returning sun. During the latter end of February the temperature had been gradually getting lower and lower, until on the 4th of March it had fallen to -74°, or 106° below freezing-point. This was the lowest recorded by the expedition, obtained from the mean of several thermometers, and, so far as we could ascertain, the lowest really authentic corrected observation that has ever been registered in any part of the globe. From noon of the 3rd until noon of the 4th the mean temperature was -69°.68, whilst the lowest mean temperature registered for any twenty-four consecutive hours was from four A.M. of the former until four A.M. of the last-mentioned day -70°.31. From six P.M. on March 2nd until six A.M. of March 4th, namely thirty-six consecutive hours, the mean temperature was as low as -69°.93´, and for the week ending March 4th the mean temperature was -60°!