When I found that he was quite dead, I crawled from his shoulders, and took up a more convenient berth in that part of the cave which was before his head, to which I had been afraid to venture while the animal was alive, lest he should attack me with his enormous tusks. The air soon became more pure, and I breathed freely. Your highness may be surprised at the assertion; but, whether I obtained air from the ice itself, or whether the ice was sufficiently porous to admit of it, I know not; but from that time I had no difficulty of respiration. In our country we have had instances of women and children, who have been buried in the snow for two months, and yet have been taken out alive, and have recovered, although they had little or no nourishment during their inhumation. I recollected this, and aware that the carcase of the animal would supply me for years, I began to indulge a hope that I might yet be saved, if driven sufficiently to the southward to admit of my being thawed out. I was convinced that the ice about me could not be more than six or eight feet thick, as I had sufficient light to distinguish the day from the night. Afterwards my eye-sight became so much more acute, that I could see very well to every corner of the cave in which I was embedded. During the first month the calls of hunger obliged me to make frequent attacks upon the carcase of the sea-horse; after that, my appetite decreased, until at length I would not touch a mouthful of food in a week,--I presume from the want of fresh air and exercise, neither of which I could be said to enjoy. I had been about two months in this hole, when a violent shock like that of an earthquake took place, and I fell from the top of the cave to the bottom, and for a minute was knocked about like a pea in a rattle. I had almost lost my senses before it was over, and I found myself lying upon what was before the top of the cave. From these circumstances I inferred that the iceberg in which I was inclosed had come in contact with another, and that I had been broken off from it, and was floating on the sea with other pieces, which, when collected in large quantities, are termed a floe of ice. Whether my situation was changed for the better I knew not, but the change inspired me with fresh hopes. I now calculated that five months had elapsed, and that it was the depth of winter, therefore I had no chance of being released until the ensuing spring. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Allah wakbar, God is every where!" interrupted the pacha. "But I wish to know, Huckaback, how you were so exactly aware of the time which had passed away."