In the afternoon the wind came out of the south and cleared the air. We now saw the _Belgica_, and also men coming in our direction. This gave us great pleasure. The ship was not more than a mile from us, and the men soon reached a floe south of us, but they could not gain our floe. Van Mirlo made a desperate effort, but slid into the water and nearly lost his life. We ate a hearty meal, then again crept into our bags. For this night it was not necessary to keep a watch, because the pressure had ceased and the temperature was falling rapidly, protecting our pan by one of new elastic ice; but a knife was kept ready to cut an opening for our escape should the ice suddenly separate under us. The night was one of comparative quietness. We arose early the next morning,--about 8 A.M.,--prepared breakfast, and at noon were ready for a desperate attempt to get to the vessel. We left the tent and most of the equipment behind, but took on our sledge enough food and our bags, in case it became necessary to make another camp. Using the sledge as a bridge, we succeeded in crossing the many leads and crevasses and reached the _Belgica_ about two o’clock. She seemed now a big ship full of comfort and rest. It was nearly two weeks before the ice was sufficiently formed and packed around this pan to permit a removal of the tent. The month of August was, on the whole, one of the greatest disappointments of our experience in the antarctic. We expected low temperatures and bright, cheerful weather. With the coming sun we hoped to dispel our anæmia and make ourselves ready for a series of difficult tasks to be undertaken in September and October; but instead we failed more and more in strength, and developed alarming mental symptoms. One man was temporarily insane, and several others were nearing a similar condition. The weather was stormy, the atmosphere was charged with clouds of sand-like drift-snow, and the sun was almost constantly invisible, though it rose higher and higher and swept more and more of the horizon daily. For one month following sunrise, like the month preceding its departure, the conditions were in effect a part of the night. It is true we had a little misty grayness at noon which we called daylight, but this was counterbalanced by the never ceasing tempests which drove such a blast of cutting snow that life outside was impossible. The first glimpses of sunlight had aroused us to new ambitions, and to spasmodic spells of cheerfulness, but this hellish series of storms sent us again into the most abject gloom of the night.