December 25.--Christmas in midsummer is certainly an anomaly to residents of the northern hemisphere, but our midsummer is more sterile than the midwinter of any known spot on the globe. At home there may be snow and wind, but there is at hand the companionship of warm friends, the cheer of a bright fire, the charm of flowers and pretty things; but what have we in place of this accustomed holiday gayety? Each man has, among the _Belgica’s_ company, his special corps of chums, and brotherly distress has strengthened these bonds, but there are no other human souls within reach to enter our narrow circle of life with new inspirations. We have long since worn out all social enthusiasm, and can unearth nothing new to infuse fresh life into the desired good cheer of our Christmas dinner. Inside then, there is nothing new, while outside all is cold and white and wearisome. There is no flowering-plant within thousands of miles, and no land, not even barren rocks, within hundreds of miles. At dinner we drank to the health of “King Leopold,” to the pleasure of “Queen Wilhelmina,” to the continued success of the expedition, and everybody expressed a hope of an early release from our ice-imprisonment. Altogether, I noticed that the enthusiasm was forced. At heart we were not in a feasting mood, and the doubt of our future was pictured on every face. We have now been nearly a year in this hopeless desert of ice. Everything seems solid and immovable. We seem to be frozen to the earth, for there is nothing which indicates movement. But with all this appearance of solidity we are in reality continually afloat, adrift with the polar winds, on a perennial ice-sheeted sea. How we long to put our feet on solid ground! We do not desire so greatly to see trees, and plants, and flowers as we do to sit upon something immovable; something not covered with this eternal whiteness, and not glittering with a dazzling ice-blink--plain ground and bare rocks will satisfy us. [Illustration: Floating-Mountains of Ice.] [Illustration: View from the Top of a Tabular Iceberg.] January 1.--New Year’s Day passed like Christmas, with a special feast followed by anxious discussions as to the time of our prospective liberation. We are now doing much travelling over the pack-ice, studying the life and the ice-changes. The _Belgica_ is about ready for the sea, so far as her internal arrangement is concerned, but outside there is nothing which promises a disruption of the ice in such a manner as to permit us to push out of it. The field, in which the bark is held, is still about two miles in diameter. The sun has reached its highest altitude and is sliding down the hillside of winter. We cannot hope that the fading days of summer will bring us relief, since the bright days of November and December were of so little avail in breaking the ice.