Three days have been declared as official holidays. It is the time for the Belgian national feasts, and we are making, during this period, hard efforts to boom up the failing spirits of the men. Special foods have been prepared to please the palates; wines are sparingly served to infuse an air of good cheer, and we try to steer the topics of conversation in such a manner that a new interest may be created, but it seems to me that all of our good intentions in this direction are wasted. Arctowski and Dobrowolski are in a bad way. Knudsen, Johansen and Melaerts are in the baking treatment, and altogether we are in a deplorable condition. If it now became necessary to throw suddenly a difficult physical task upon the men there would be few able to endure it. If we were compelled to make a prolonged march over the cheerless pack we should fail miserably. In the cabin we know this helpless condition perfectly well, but we try to push it to the background and talk of the usual home sentiments of the feast, the coming sun, and the brighter prospects of a coming summer campaign of exploration. The sailors, always anxious for a holiday, though their work is never severe, are assembled in groups, some in the forecastle playing cards, others scattered over the pack on snowshoes drinking in the glory of the coming day. [Illustration: A Hunter Taking a Sun Bath.] [Illustration: The Last to Enter the Three-Man Sleeping Bag.] The night is clear and sharp, with a brightness in the sky and a blueness on the ice which we have not seen since the first few days after sunset. An aurora of unusual brightness is arched across the southern sky. The transformation in its figure is rapid, and the wavy movement is strikingly noticeable. We are all out looking at the aurora, some by way of curiosity, but others are seriously studying the phenomenon. Arctowski, bundled in a wealth of Siberian furs, is walking up and down the deck, ascending to the bridge and passing in and out of the laboratory, as if some great event were about to transpire. Racovitza, with a pencil in his bare hand, in torn trousers, and without a coat or a hat, comes out every few minutes and, with a shiver, returns to make serious sketches of the aurora and humorous drafts of the unfortunate workers in the “cold, lady-less south.” These daily touches of humour by “Raco” are bitterly sarcastic but extremely amusing. Lecointe, lost in a Nansen suit of furs, has been out on the pack in his observatory, which he calls the “Hotel,” and is particularly elated because he has succeeded in getting an observation. “Now,” says he, “we will know when this bloody sun will rise.” Our position is latitude 70° 36′ 19″, longitude 86° 34′ 19″. We are drifting northward and eastward; this we have already learned by the naturalist’s drag-nets, but it is comforting to know the exact rate of drift. If we continue to drift northerly a little, if the temperature