It was a perfect morning, a cobalt sky and an ultramarine sea, a golden sun, and an almost wasteful extravagance of crimson pouring over hills of purest snow, which caught and reflected its glories from every peak and crag. Between me and their feet lay miles of rough ice, bordered with the black “slob” formed during the night. Lastly, there was my poor little pan in the fore-ground, bobbing up and down on the edge of the open sea, stained with blood, and littered with carcasses and _débris_. It was smaller than last night; the edges, beating against the new ice around, had heaped themselves up in fragments that, owing to its diminutive size, it could ill spare. I also noticed that the new ice from the water melted under the dogs’ bodies had also been formed at the expense of its thickness. Five dogs and myself in a coloured football costume and a blood-smeared dog-skin cloak, with a grey flannel shirt on a pole of frozen dogs’ legs, completed the picture. The sun was almost hot by now, and I was conscious of a surplus of heat in my skin cloak. I began to look longingly at one of my remaining dogs, for an appetite will rise even on an ice pan. The idea of eating made me think of fire, so once again I inspected my matches. Alas! the heads had entirely soaked off them all, except three or four blue-top wax matches which were in a paste. These I now laid out to dry, and I searched around on my snow pan to see if I could get a bit of transparent ice with which to make a burning-glass, for I was pretty sure that, with all the unravelled tow stuffed into my nether garments and the fat of the dead dogs, I could make smoke enough to be seen if I could only get a light. I had found a piece which it seemed might answer the purpose, and had gone back to wave my flag, which I did every two minutes, when suddenly, for the second time, I thought I saw the glitter of an oar. It did not seem possible, however, for it must be remembered that it was not water that lay between me and the land, but “slob” ice, which, a mile or two inshore of me, was very heavy. Even if people had seen me, I did not think they could get through, though I knew all of them would be trying. Moreover, there was no smoke rising on the land to give me hope that I had been seen. There had been no gun flashes in the night, and I felt sure that, had anyone seen me, there would have been a bonfire on every hill to encourage me to keep going. So I gave it up and went on with my work. But the next time I went back to my flag it seemed very distinct, and though it kept disappearing as we rose and fell on the surface, my readers can well imagine I kept my eyes in that direction. Through my dark spectacles having been lost, however, I was already partly snow-blind.