Although we feel that we are on the threshold of more great discoveries, and although, for some unexplained reason, we are all in a fever-heat of excitement, quite like a prize-fighter on the eve of a great battle, calmly and coolly considered there is nothing very wonderful in our immediate surroundings. The weather is quiet but unsettled. A heavy sea rolls in under the pack-ice through which we plough. To the west there is a black sky and under it, just on the horizon, is the dark line of an open sea with the marbled peaks of bergs silhouetted against the black sheen of the heavens. Far to the eastward, about seventy miles off, is the rough outline of the great white land which we have followed for the past three weeks. From the crow’s-nest at the masthead we can see fifty miles of this strange country. It begins in the north-east and fades away in the airy distance of the south-west. Over the port-bow there is a fjordlike break through the land which seems to extend eastward as far as our eyes can reach. This may be another canal like Belgica Strait. If so, its position corresponds fairly well with Bismark Strait, which was vaguely seen by the German sealer, Dallman. The opening, however, of this prospective strait is choked with heavy ice and, though we are eager to push landward and examine the coast carefully, the drift-ice forces us farther and farther away from the shore-line. In our over-anxious efforts to keep the coast in sight we have pushed into an area of ice which, for a time, shatters our new hopes. [Illustration: Cape Renard, Dancoland.]