March 21.--It is a dull, gray day. The sky is low, with a high fog, but along the south and east there are breaks in the clouds permitting a few rays to steal a passage to the cold, white world below. The night was bright early in the evening with a few auroras, cloud-like fissures, or luminous patches in the south-west, but they were of short duration. After midnight the heavens assumed the dullness which now makes the scene one of deep gloom. It is on such days that we assume a disgusted and fault-finding mood. To-day we are dissatisfied with the food. We have complained intermittently for a long time, but now everybody seems bent on having his say as to the badness of our provisions. We have tried penguins and cormorants, but the majority have voted them unpalatable. The excitement, heretofore, of new discoveries and new sights to infuse fresh life has been too frequent and too long continued to permit us to think of dainty foods and tempting relishes. Now it is different. We are held by the increasing grip of the too affectionate pack. We are imprisoned in an endless sea of ice, and find our horizon monotonous. We have told all the tales, real and imaginative, to which we are equal. Time weighs heavily upon us as the darkness slowly advances. The despairing storms and the increasing cold call for some new fuel to keep the lowering fires of our bodies ablaze. I have taken the trouble to make a personal canvass of every man of the _Belgica_ to-day to find out the greatest complaints and the greatest longings of each. The result of this inquiry was certainly a lesson in curious human fancies. In the cabin the foremost wants are for home news and feminine society. We are hungry for letters from mothers, sisters, and other men’s sisters, and what would we not give for a peep at a pretty woman? Racovitza reminds us daily that he will write a book describing life in the “Ladyless south,” and we have all agreed to contribute articles to a forthcoming paper in which we shall advertise our wants. This paper will take the generic name given us by the naturalist, “The Pack Loafers’ World.” In the forecastle the men are less sentimental and less inclined to poetry. They desire first some substantiate for the stomach. Fresh food, such as beefsteaks, vegetables, and fruits are their foremost wants. Two or three, in lone dark corners and in tears, slyly admit that a few moments with the girls of their hearts would be more to their liking. They would like fresh foods, but they long for freedom from the lonely pack, and the congeniality of a land of feminine charms. Our hatred is all heaped upon one class of men. They are the inventors and manufacturers of the various kinds of canned and preserved meats. Our general name for “embalmed beef” is “Kydbolla.” If these meat-packers could be found anywhere within reach they would become food for the giant petrels very quickly. In this one sentiment we are all of one accord. Down with