May 27.--The little dusk at midday is fading more and more. A feeble deflected light falls upon the elevations, the icebergs, and the hummocks, offering a faint cheerfulness, but this soon withdraws and leaves a film of blackness. The pack presents daily the same despondent surface of gray which, by contrast to the white sparkle of some time ago, makes our outlook even more melancholy. The weather is now quite clear and in general more settled. The temperature ranges from 5° to 10° C. below zero. We have frequent falls of snow, but the quantity is small and the period is short. Generally we are able to see the stars from two in the afternoon until ten in the morning. During the four hours of midday the sky is generally screened by a thick icy vapour. There are a few white petrels about daily, and in the sounding hole we have noticed a seal occasionally, but there is now no other life. All have an abundance of work, but our ambition for regular occupation, particularly anything which requires prolonged mental concentration, is wanting; even the task of keeping up the log is too much. There is nothing new to write about, nothing to excite fresh interest. There are now no auroras, and no halos; everything on the frozen sea and over it is sleeping the long sleep of the frigid night. CHAPTER XXII THE SOUTH POLAR NIGHT (CONTINUED)--DAYS OF DISCONTENTMENT. [Illustration: A Helpless Ship in a Hopeless Sea of Ice.] The grayness of the first days of the night has given way to a soul-despairing darkness, broken only at noon by a feeble yellow haze on the northern sky. I can think of nothing more disheartening, more destructive to human energy, than this dense, unbroken blackness of the long polar night. In the arctic it has some redeeming features. There the white invader has the Eskimo to assist, teach, and amuse him. The weather there is clear and cold; and in the regions about Greenland, where I have been engaged, there is land--real solid land, not the mere mockery of it, like the shifting pack that is about us here. With land at hand, prolonged journeys are always possible, but what are we to do on a moving sea of ice? May 29.--Yesterday we had a warm northerly gale with much snow and a thick fog. The ice is again in rapid motion. There are many new leads, numerous pressure angles, and fresh fissures in the ice. Danco is steadily failing. To-day is Sunday; the men look forward with some anticipation to this day because Sunday is set aside, not as a day of worship, for I have never seen a man on the _Belgica_ with a Bible or prayer-book in his hands, but as a time of freedom from usual duties. It is the weekly period of recreation and special feeding. The few eatables which are still relished are placed on the menu for Sunday. This serves to mark time and to divide, somewhat, the almost unceasing sameness of our life.