At six o'clock I joined the officers at dinner. Our glass and crockery has, in some mysterious manner known only to the steward, been disappearing from the time of leaving Boston, but there is plenty of tin ware to supply the deficiency, and each cup contained a boquet of flowers, cut from tissue-paper, and a mammoth centre-piece of the same materials stood under the glittering chandelier. The dinner was much enjoyed by everybody, and if we lacked the orthodox turkey, the haunch was not a bad substitute. [Sidenote: AN ARCTIC BALL.] [Sidenote: A PAS DE DEUX.] I remained until nine o'clock, and left the party to a merry evening. The hour for extinguishing the lights was put off at discretion; and, having myself granted this privilege, I cannot, of course, say that any of the proprieties of discipline or of ship-board life were interfered with. Rejoiced to see that the people had the spirit to be merry at all, I was only too glad to encourage them in it. Every part of the "Festival," as they facetiously call it, was conducted in a very orderly manner. The "ball" came off as promised, and when I went up, about midnight, to have a look at the merrymakers, I found Knorr, wrapped in furs, seated upon a keg, fiddling away in a very energetic manner, while Barnum and McDonald were going through a sailor's hornpipe with immense _eclat_; then Carl swung the steward round in the "giddy mazes of the waltz;" and, finally, Charley set the ship shaking with laughter by attempting a _pas de deux_ with Madame Hans. The old cook had crawled up the ladder from below, and, forgetting his troubles and his "reindeers," applauded the actors vociferously. But he was soon observed to be making off from the "gay and festive" scene. A dozen voices called loudly after him,-- "Hallo, cook!--come back and have a dance!" "Vat for me dance, and make nonsense, ven dere be no vomens?" "But here's Mrs. Hans, cook." "Ugh!"--and he dove below. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVI. THE NEW YEAR.--LOOKING FOR SONNTAG.--THE AURORA BOREALIS.--A REMARKABLE DISPLAY.--DEPTH OF SNOW.--STRANGE MILDNESS OF THE WEATHER.--THE OPEN SEA.--EVAPORATION AT LOW TEMPERATURES.--LOOKING FOR THE TWILIGHT.--MY PET FOX. January 1st, 1861. The Christmas holidays have passed quickly away, and the year of grace eighteen hundred and sixty-one was born amid great rejoicings. We have just "rung out the Old and in the New." As the clock showed the midnight hour, the bell was tolled, our swivel gun sent a blaze of fire from its little throat into the darkness, and some fire-works went fizzing and banging into the clear sky. The rockets and blue-lights gleamed over the snow with a weird and strange light; and the loud boom of the gun and the crash of the bell echoing and reëchoing through the neighboring gorges seemed like the voices of startled spirits of the solitude. [Sidenote: LOOKING FOR SONNTAG.]