Once, indeed, it appeared as if we could reach the land with our vessel; the ice broke up rapidly, channels were numerous, and we were making good progress, when all at once it became intensely cold, and winter set in with a suddenness that astounded us, who were accustomed to the changes of those latitudes.
Our ship, which was now within half a mile of the land, became enclosed on all sides and underneath with compact ice.
The sun made his appearance only at long intervals, and it was plain that the long polar night was approaching. The time he remained above the horizon became less, till before very long we did not see him at all. It was night now, but not dark, like the nights in other parts of the world; indeed, it seemed an everlasting twilight.
We made several trips on the ice to the land, the surface of which we found to be very much broken, mountains and hills being numerous. Some were active volcanoes, others frozen over, but others again were quite free from ice, and covered with a hardy kind of vegetation. We attributed this latter phenomenon to subterranean heat. On climbing several of the hills, we noticed that just above the horizon the sky was always of a red colour,
