I anxiously looked for, but could see no place combining so many of the requisites of a good winter harbour as the bay in which we left the Advance. Near its south-western corner the wide streams and the water-courses on the shore promised the earliest chances of liberation in the coming summer. It was secure against the moving ice: lofty headlands walled it in beautifully to seaward, enclosing an anchorage with a moderate depth of water; yet it open to the meridian sunlight, and guarded from winds, eddies, and drift. The space enclosed was only occupied by a few rocky islets and our brig. We soon came in sight of her on our return march, as she lay at anchor in its southern sweep, with her masts cutting sharply against the white glacier; and, hurrying on through a gale, we were taken on board without accident.
My comrades gathered anxiously around me, waiting for the news. I told them in a few words of the results of our journey, and why I had determined upon remaining and gave at once the order to warp in between the islands. We found seven fathom soundings and a perfect shelter from outside ice; and thus laid our little brig in the harbour, which we were fated never to leave together,—a long resting place to her indeed, for the same ice is around her still.
The winter was now approaching rapidly. The thermometer had fallen by the 10th of September to 14°, and the young ice had cemented the floes so that we could walk and sledge round the brig. About sixty paces north of us an iceberg had been caught, and was frozen in; it was our neighbour while we remained in harbour. The rocky islets around us were fringed with hummocks; and, as the tide fell, their sides were coated with opaque crystals of bright white. The birds had gone.
“September 10.—We have plenty of responsible work before us. The long night ‘when no man can work’ is close at hand: in another month we shall lose the sun.
“First and foremost, we have to unstow the hold and deposit its contents in the storehouse on the shore. Brooks and a party are now briskly engaged in this double labour, running loaded boats along a canal that has to be recut every morning.
“Next comes the catering for winter diet. We have little or no game as yet in Smith’s Sound; and, though the traces of deer that we have observed may be followed by the animals themselves, I cannot calculate upon them as a resource. Steaks of salt junk, artistically cut, are strung on lines and soaked in festoons under the ice. The salmon-trout and salt cod-fish which we bought at Fiskernaes are placed in barrels, perforated to permit a constant circulation of fresh water through them. Our pickled cabbage is similarly treated, after a little potash has been used to neutralize the acid. All these are submitted to twelve hours of alternate soaking and freezing, the crust of ice being removed from them before each immersion. This is the steward’s province, and a most important one it is.
“Every one else is well employed,—M’Gary arranging and Bonsall making the inventory of our stores; Ohlsen and Petersen building our deck-house; while I am devising the plan of an architectural interior, which is to combine, of course, the utmost ventilation, room, dryness, warmth, general accommodation, comfort,—in a word, all the appliances of health.
“We have made a comfortable dog-house on the island; but they cannot be persuaded to sleep away from the vessel. They prefer the bare snow, where they can couch within the sound of our voices, to a warm kennel upon the rocks.
“September 11.—To-day came to us the first quiet Sunday of harbour life. We changed our log registration from sea-time to the familiar home series that begins at midnight. It is not only that the season has given us once more a local habitation; but there is something in the return of varying day and night that makes it grateful to reinstate this domestic observance. The long staring day, which has clung to us for more than two months, to the exclusion of the stars, has begun to intermit its brightness.
“We had our accustomed morning and evening prayers; and the day went by, full of sober thought, and, I trust, wise resolve.