was tremendous, but I did not hear it, as I was
immediately enclosed in the ice. Although at first there were
interstices, yet, as the southerly gale blew the icebergs before it into
the northern region, all was quickly cemented together by the frost, and
I found myself pent up in an apartment not eight feet square, in company
with a sea-horse.

I shall not detain your highness by describing my sensations: my ideas
were, that I was to exist a certain time, and then die for want of fresh
air; but they were incorrect. At first, indeed, the cave was intolerably
hot from the accumulation of breath, and I thought I should soon be
suffocated. I recollected all my past sins, I implored for mercy, and
lay down to die; but I found that the ice melted away with the heat, and
that, in so doing, a considerable portion of the air was liberated, so
that in a few minutes my respiration became more free. The animal in the
meantime, apparently frightened at his unusual situation, was perfectly
quiet; and, as the slightest straw will be caught at by the drowning
man, so did the idea of my preservation come into my head. I considered
how much air so enormous an animal must consume, and determined upon
despatching him, that I might have more for my own immediate wants. I
took out my knife, and inserting it between the vertebral bones that
joined his head to his neck, divided the spinal marrow, and he
immediately expired.

When I found that he was quite dead, I crawled from his shoulders, and
took up a more convenient berth in that part of the cave which was
before his head, to which I had been afraid to venture while the animal
was alive, lest he should attack me with his enormous tusks. The air
soon became more pure, and I breathed freely. Your highness may be
surprised at the assertion; but, whether I obtained air from the ice
itself, or whether the ice was sufficiently porous to admit of it, I
know not; but from that time I had no difficulty of respiration. In our
country we have had instances of women and children, who have been
buried in the snow for two months, and yet have been taken out alive,
and have recovered, although they had little or no nourishment during
their inhumation. I recollected this, and aware that the carcase of the
animal would supply me for years, I began to indulge a hope that I might
yet be saved, if driven sufficiently to the southward to admit of my
being thawed out. I was convinced that the ice about me cou