positions we were able to make out distinctly that the islands are a separate group with no other land eastward within sight. Our positions northward in the morning and southward during the night, proved this. We saw some signs of land to the south during the afternoon, but these vanished later. It was evidently a mirage. We lost sight of the Alexander Islands at about ten o’clock last night, when it became too dark to see more than a few miles. During the night we steamed slowly over a south-westerly course close to the edge of the pack. At 6 a.m. (February 17) the fires were covered and the sails braced to a fair wind, sending us along, south-westerly, at the rate of about four knots. There was some rain and snow during the night, which lined the decks, covered the ropes, and sheeted the sails with ice. So thoroughly were the sails incased that we were unable to set the patent topsails. We hammered and pounded the sails and then we pulled and lugged at the ropes, but our efforts were in vain. The steam-winch was brought to our aid, but it, too, failed to bring down the icy sails. At eight o’clock, when I came on deck, there was no land or ice in sight. (We saw no more land for thirteen months.) An hour later we passed along the outer fringe of small fragments of drift ice. The weather changed every few minutes. Alternately we had rain, and sleet, and fog, and snow. Our speed was increasing and the wind came in strong puffs. We had seen very few bergs in the forenoon, but the horizon was constantly hazed by thick weather, so we must have passed many without being able to see them. Just before noon, while trying to walk over the slippery decks, my attention was suddenly directed to a dark spot in the fog over our port bow. I watched this for a second or two, for the spot grew curiously lighter as we went on. Everything was stiff, and dark, and dull. The lookout on the capstan threw his arm easily, but anxiously, on the anchor and leaned over to fix his eye on the same object, but he gave no signal, and I said nothing, for there didn’t seem to be anything tangible to report. The Captain now walked from the chart table to the port-side of the bridge; just as he caught sight of the curious object it brightened with a blink and a fraction of a second later a great wall of ice, towering far above the masts, stood before us. “Hard-a starboard,” shouted the Captain, with such abruptness and such force that a quiver went deep into the heart of everyone on deck; a few moments later we grazed the marble-like cliff of a huge iceberg, gliding by so closely that we nearly scraped its knife-like edges. [Illustration: The _Belgica_ pressing Southward through the Drift-ice.] [Illustration: Iceberg off Cape Tuxen.]