This may seem fanciful to the reader, but the impression was real to us at the time.

People living under civilized conditions, surrounded by Nature's varied forms of life and by all the familiar work of their own hands, may scarcely realize how quickly the mind, influenced by the eyes, responds to the unusual and weaves about it curious imaginings like the firelight fancies of our childhood days.

We had lived long amid the ice, and we half- unconsciously strove to see resemblances to human faces and living forms in the fantastic contours and massively uncouth shapes of berg and floe.
At dusk we made fast to a heavy floe, each boat having its painter fastened to a separate hummock in order to avoid collisions in the swell.

We landed the blubber-stove, boiled some water in order to provide hot milk, and served cold rations.

I also landed the dome tents and stripped the coverings from the hoops.