It is difficult to imagine a more desolate position to pass a winter than the one in which we were placed. Our ship was on an exposed and, apparently, unsafe coast, without even the protection of a bay, within one hundred yards of a low undulating beach, on which, should any extraordinary pressure of the pack destroy our protecting bergs, we must inevitably be forced and wrecked, exposed to all the rigours of an Arctic winter; and yet, notwithstanding these unenviable drawbacks, the official announcement that this place had been decided upon as our winter quarters was received with a deep feeling of relief and thankfulness. This determination was not, however, arrived at for some days, when, from careful watching of the pack, it was decided that a farther advance was absolutely impossible. Winter was advancing upon us with rapid strides, eager to seize us in its icy grasp; so quickly, indeed, that in two days we were able to _walk on shore_ on the new and rapidly forming ice. The now steadily falling temperature was another and a sure indication that the navigable season was at an end. Without a harbour or projecting headland of any description to protect our good ship from the furious gusts that we must naturally expect, the "Alert" lay, apparently, in a vast frozen ocean, having land on one side, but bounded on the other by the chaotic and illimitable polar pack. The land had already assumed a wintry aspect, and the ship, to be in unison with her surroundings, had also put on a garb of snow and ice, each spar and each rope being double its ordinary thickness from the accumulation of frost rime. Everything was white, solemn, and motionless around us; no voice of bird or beast was heard to disturb the silence. All was as still and silent as the tomb--a silence that until then had never been broken by the presence of man. "No other noyse, nor people's troublous cries, As still are wont to annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard, but carelesse quiet lyes, Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemyes." Night, to which we had long been strangers, gradually came upon us, the darkness increasing perceptibly as each day passed away. From the 3rd of September, on which day the sun set at midnight, the days decreased in length, and the stars were again seen to twinkle in the heavens.