I have heard of a deaf man who once said that life was of value to him only because of “reading, eating, drinking, and the prospect of death.” This sentiment in a modified form would, I am certain, be the confession of many, if not most, of our party, during every stormy period. The modification is, perhaps, only in the last word, and this we would change to “the prospect of an early return to the inner world and to renewed social conditions.” The storms are so numerous and close that a tempest is nearly always on the horizon. If it is not so, as was the case a week ago, the air about the _Belgica_ rings with happy voices and musical sounds. But there is always something to make hilarity short-lived. If it is not the weather it is a frozen batch of skins, a garment hopelessly torn which needs mending, a watch to repair, a boot to mend, a camera to alter, or any one of a thousand discomforts and distractions about the ship which send the soul to the verge of desperation. To-night I have stockings to darn, to-morrow pantaloons to mend, and all of next week carpenter-work, mending and making sledges, sewing sails, dressing skins, and taking photos in a temperature -22° C.--all of this is far from pleasant, but it contains a lesson. It teaches us how much of the drudgery of life is done uncomplainingly by mothers, sisters, wives, and other members of the family circle. It makes us feel the importance of feminine existence, causes us to see the ups and downs, the ponds and eddies, the rapids and cataracts of the humdrum side of life which man ordinarily escapes. November 16.--The winter night, with its death-dealing blackness, has passed; the spring, with its awful storms and gray monotony has followed, and the summer, with its continuous noonday splendour, commences to-day. At least it ought to, if our estimated position is correct. We have, however, had no observations in a week, and are not, in consequence, able to fix our exact position, and the persistent cloudiness of the sky is such that we cannot determine whether the sun is above or below the horizon at midnight.