The weather, the ice, and the general life and surroundings have been so monotonous for the past month, that I have found little of interest to tabulate. The general health of the crew is improving. They no longer have an anxious, dejected aspect, and their spirits are rising. In clear weather they sing, and dance, and speak in happy, cheerful tones. The ship is being prepared for sea, which is a matter of considerable work. Being imprisoned in the grasp of the pack for these many months has made the locality like a small village. Outhouses, sledges, sounding machines, and many other things are strewn on the pack. Aboard, the fixtures have all been more or less disarranged, so that everything must be restored and refitted for the new voyage. We have filled the water-tanks with snow. By burning seal blubber and coal in our condenser, we are able to melt snow and bring the resulting water to a boiling point very quickly; this is poured over the snow in the tanks. This method is very satisfactory, for in this way we are able to make several hundred gallons of water daily. I believe, however, that a jet of steam directed into the tanks would do the work much more quickly and with greater economy; but to make the necessary alterations for this is, with our equipment, quite impossible. Could there be a more melancholy, a more maddening, or a more hopeless region than this? We are passing rapidly into the polar summer, the time when, in other zones, all Nature smiles;--even the sister zone, the arctic, has striking attractive features at this time. The birds fill the air with music, new animals make their appearance, and on land even flowers and mosquitos serve to make life interesting; but here, in this icy antarctic wilderness, the charm of Nature is dead. We see the sun so seldom that it is, indeed, a surprise when its unobstructed rays fall upon the frosted whiteness. Though it sweeps more than half of the horizon daily, we get only the cold blue light which is filtered through a constant haze of icy clouds. An occasional sunburst for a few moments each day and a clear sky once fortnightly is our average. Storms, tempests, and steady howling winds with snow, are our constant lot, and these come from all points of the compass. There is no inspiring solitude, no rest, no cheerful outlook; the sea is imprisoned under a restless and irregular mass of storm-driven ice. The sky is always cloudy and dirty; the air is always wet, cold, and agitated; under such circumstances the human mind assumes a like attitude. [Illustration: The Tabular Iceberg, the Largest Berg within the Horizon of the _Belgica’s_ Drift. It is about 200 Feet High, and a Half-mile Long.]