Steering to the west through open water and patches of trailing brash, we were encouraged to find the pack trending towards the south. By pushing through bars of jammed floes and dodging numerous bergs, twenty miles were gained due southwards before the conditions had changed. The fog cleared, and right ahead massive bergs rose out of an ice-strewn sea. We neared one which was a mile in length and one hundred feet in height. The heaving ocean, dashing against its mighty, glistening walls, rushed with a hollow boom into caverns of ethereal blue; gothic portals to a cathedral of resplendent purity. The smaller bergs and fragments of floe crowded closer together, and the two men at the wheel had little time for reverie. Orders came in quick succession--"Starboard! Steady!" and in a flash--"Hard-a-port!" Then repeated all over again, while the rudder-chains scraped and rattled in their channels. Gradually the swell subsided, smoothed by the weight of ice. The tranquillity of the water heightened the superb effects of this glacial world. Majestic tabular bergs whose crevices exhaled a vaporous azure; lofty spires, radiant turrets and splendid castles; honeycombed masses illumined by pale green light within whose fairy labyrinths the water washed and gurgled. Seals and penguins on magic gondolas were the silent denizens of this dreamy Venice. In the soft glamour of the midsummer midnight sun, we were possessed by a rapturous wonder--the rare thrill of unreality. The ice closed in, and shock after shock made the ship vibrate as she struck the smaller pieces full and fair, followed by a crunching and grinding as they scraped past the sides. The dense pack had come, and hardly a square foot of space showed amongst the blocks; smaller ones packing in between the larger, until the sea was covered with a continuous armour of ice. The ominous sound arising from thousands of faces rubbing together as they gently oscillated in the swell was impressive. It spoke of a force all-powerful, in whose grip puny ships might be locked for years and the less fortunate receive their last embrace. The pack grew heavier and the bergs more numerous, embattled in a formidable array. If an ideal picture, from our point of view it was impenetrable. No "water sky" showed as a distant beacon; over all was reflected the pitiless, white glare of the ice. The 'Aurora' retreated to the open sea, and headed to the west in search of a break in the ice-front. The wind blew from the south-east, and, with sails set to assist the engines, rapid progress was made. The southern prospect was disappointing, for the heavy pack was ranged in a continuous bar. The over-arching sky invariably shone with that yellowish-white effulgence known as "ice blink," indicative of continuous ice, in contrast with the dark water sky, a sign of open water, or a mottled sky proceeding from an ice-strewn but navigable sea.