During the afternoon we sailed westerly, keeping the streams of drift-ice within sight. There were fewer icebergs as we advanced, but it continued foggy, with alternate squalls of rain and snow, which prevented our seeing to any long distance. The ice which we have passed within the past few days, and the pack to the southward, are not, at any place, formidable except in the choked channels, Bismarck Inlet, and the inlet north of Alexanderland. If we had awaited an easterly wind, which is the prevailing wind of summer, no doubt we might have forced a way southward along the coast of Grahamland. The season for antarctic navigation, however, is already past, and if we are to make a point far south this year, which the Commandant desires, we must push on with all force. Early in the evening the prow was turned southward. With sails and steam the good ship was rushed through the light streams of drift-ice. The sea rolled under her in great inky mountains and the ice, in response to the wave, gave off a noise like the crackle of a silk garment. At midnight we came to a region where the sea was closely covered with ice, but the pieces were still small and separated by bands of water covered with brash. 6 a.m. February 18. Those of us not directly connected with the navigation of the bark, and the men off watch, slept very little last night; the noise of the larger pans, as they struck the ship, and the grating and rasping of the smaller fragments, as the _Belgica_ was forced through the ice, was such that sleep was impossible. We were all anxious and uneasy. There was little wind, but it was dark and foggy, and icebergs were everywhere to be expected. Mentally another berg collision was constantly before us and every unusual thump suggested a calamity. As the purple gray of dawn illuminated the horizon eastward, our hearts beat more easily, and our minds were more at rest, though the new scene which now lay before us was the most hopeless icy-desolation which, to the present, it had been our lot to see.