“Seventy-seven days more without a sunrise! twenty-six before we reach the solstitial point of greatest darkness! “December 22, Sunday. The solstice!—the midnight of the year! “December 23, Monday. Perfect darkness! Drift unknown. Winds nearly at rest with the exception of a little gasp from the westward. “December 24, Tuesday. ‘Through utter darkness borne.’ “December 25. ‘Ye Christmas of ye Arctic cruisers!’ “Our Christmas passed without a lack of the good things of this life. ‘Goodies’ we had galore; but that best of earthly blessings, the communion of loved sympathies, these Arctic cruisers had not. It was curious to observe the depressing influences of each man’s home thoughts, and absolutely saddening the effort of each man to impose upon his neighbor and be very boon and jolly. We joked incessantly, but badly, too; ate of good things, and drank up a moiety of our Heidsieck; and then we sang negro songs, wanting only time, measure, and harmony, but abounding in noise; and after a closing bumper to Mr. Grinnell, adjourned with creditable jollity from table to the theatre.” “Never,” writes Dr. Kane, “had I enjoyed the tawdry quackery of the stage half so much. “The ‘Blue Devils’: God bless us! but it was very, very funny. None knew their parts, and the prompter could not read glibly enough to do his office. Everything, whether jocose, or indignant, or commonplace, or pathetic, was delivered in a high-tragedy monotone of despair; five words at a time, or more or less, according to the facilities of the prompting. Megrim, with a pair of seal-skin boots, bestowed his gold upon the gentle Annette; and Annette, nearly six feet high, received it with mastodonic grace. Annette was an Irishman named Daly, and I might defy human being to hear her, while balanced on the heel of her boot, exclaim, in rich masculine brogue, ‘Och, feather,’ without roaring. “After this followed _The Star Spangled Banner_; then a complicated Marseillaise by our French cook, Henri; then a sailor’s hornpipe by the diversely talented Bruce; the orchestra—Stewart playing out the intervals on the Jew’s-harp from the top of a lard-cask. In fact, we were very happy fellows. We had had a foot race in the morning over the midnight ice for three purses of a flannel shirt each, and a splicing of the main brace. The day was night, the stars shining feebly through the mist. “December 28, Saturday.