I felt as if I were about to sail over the face of an unknown planet, and in a great measure, it was just this that we were destined to accomplish. I was fully alive to the terrors of that mysterious, strangely isolated quarter of our globe, where it seemed as if the Almighty had set his ban against man’s advance, by encircling it with an impenetrable barrier, to cross which, every effort, of which history holds any record, was fruitless. When the granite cliffs of Spitzbergen were fading from our view, Torrence turned to me, and said with emphasis: "Mark my word! We are going to find a better climate ahead than we have left behind. We are going to find land, and a race of men who are unknown to the world. We are going to find many other things; but put that much down as a record if you will;" and so I have entered it. We were alone, and with a loneliness never felt before. The last saw-like edge of Spitzbergen had sunk below the water line to the south. Yes, even that terribly Northern foothold must now be looked upon as a southern home, when compared with our present resting place. Should we ever look forward to reaching it, as a tropical paradise—the bourne of all our hopes and expectations? For Spitzbergen had known men; it was a part of our own world, and as I watched it fade and sink away it seemed close to all I had ever known and loved in my dear old earth, where nothing could ever be so solemnly, so awfully foreign as where we were, and where we were going. Suddenly it became cold, and looking down we saw that the ocean had grown strangely quiet, the sparkle and motion of the waves having left it. Descending to a lower level we saw that we were passing over a field of pack ice, solid and impenetrable; and we slackened speed, and sunk still lower to examine it. As we slipped along close above its hummocky surface, at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, we could appreciate some of the difficulties with which Arctic explorers have had to contend. What a herculean task to forge ahead through such an obstacle, whether with ship or sled! And yet with what absolute ease we seemed about to solve the puzzle of the ages. However, we were still a long way from the pole, and there was no telling what might happen before reaching it. At times I would be seized with a superstitious dread of some awful impending calamity, or of some horrible condition of the earth’s surface or atmosphere, which would make it impossible for man to live where we were going. But Torrence was firm and resolute, and if such thoughts ever troubled him, he did not speak of them. I could scarcely believe that we should continue to the end as easily as we had begun, and advance without hindrance into the forbidden mysteries beyond.