on, and on, I kept on the same course. What do you think I
was doing? Why I was walking round and round the North Pole, and should
have kept on walking till now, for nothing would have made me give in--I
promise you that wasn't my way--had I not come upon the print of my own
footsteps in the snow. This made me aware of my error; so I sat down to
consider how it could have happened, and at last the truth flashed on my
mind. You see it was a very natural mistake I had made, for the needle
of my compass was all the time pointing to the North Pole, just as a
capstan-bar does to the capstan, while I was running round at the other
end of it. I was rather puzzled to know what to do, for had I walked
south, not having the means of ascertaining my longitude, I might, I
thought, find myself on the other side of the globe, somewhere, perhaps
near Behring's Straits, leading into the Sea of Kamtschatka, where there
would be little chance of my falling in with a ship.

"I had sat cogitating for some time, and was beginning to get rather
chilly, when it occurred to me that I might render a great service to
science, by going chock up to the North Pole, and ascertaining of what
it is composed. I instantly rose from my seat, put my compass down to
strike the course I was to take, fired off my gun to clear myself a path
through the frozen atmosphere, secured my stock of bear's flesh on my
back for provisions, and manfully set forward, with my face away from
all human beings."

"But how could you see, Mr Johnson?" asked Grey. "I always thought it
was dark in those regions during winter!"

"See! why perfectly well," answered the boatswain promptly. "If the
stars and moon happened not to be shining, there was always the aurora
borealis blazing up, like a great fire, right ahead of me. You have
seen the northern lights on a winter's night, but they are a very
different affair up there to what they appear so far south. If it
wasn't for them, in my opinion, there would be no living in those
regions, but by their warmth they keep the atmosphere round them in a
very pleasant state. Well, on I walked, sleeping at night in the huts I
made in the snow, leaving a small hole open to breathe through; and it
was not disagreeably cold, owing to the warm whiffs which came every now
and then from the Pole.

"After progressing thus for several days, I observed an extraordinary
phenomenon. Whenever I took my compass out in my hand, I felt tha