I had come back in a few hours a distance
which it had before taken me a week to perform. I have heard of fear
giving wings to the feet, but though I won't allow that I was afraid, I
must have flown along at a good pace. Well, I got up to my flagstaff,
and found my compass all right, though as soon as it was clear of the
snow it had a slight inclination to move northward; and so, to avoid
risk, I stowed it away carefully in my pocket. The handkerchief was
frozen as stiff as a board, and I had some difficulty in folding it up
for other purposes. I was glad also to get back my walking-stick, which
helped me wonderfully over the ground. Again I sat down. It was only
now the real difficulties of my position burst on me, but difficulties
never have and never shall daunt me. After a little consideration I
determined to discover the spot where I had commenced making the circuit
round the Pole. For several days I was unsuccessful; till at last I
beheld a dark object on the snow. I ran towards it, and it proved to
be, as I expected, the body of one of my shipmates, the last who had
given in--a Shetlander--Murdoc Dew by name, as good a seaman as ever
lived. I exchanged boots with him as mine were worn out with so much
walking, and then, pushing on, I came upon the bodies of my other
companions and the bears we had killed, by which I knew that I was
steering a right course for the spot where I had left the ship. I
calculated that had I gone south when I first thought of doing so, I
should have got on shore somewhere to the eastward of Nova Zembla, and
have had to travel right through Siberia and the whole of Europe before
I could have got back to old England, which, considering that I had not
a purse with me, nor a sixpence to put into it, would not have been
pleasant.

"On I went till I got into the latitudes where icebergs are collected.
They are, as is known, vast mountains of ice and snow, so that when I
once got among them it was impossible to see any way ahead, and as the
summer was coming on and their bases melted, they began to tumble about
in so awful a way, that I fully expected to be crushed by them. My
food, too, was almost expended, and Murdoc Dew's boots gave symptoms of
over use, so that at last I began to think that there might be a
pleasanter situation than the one I was placed in, when one day, having
climbed to the summit of the highest iceberg in the neighbourhood, I
beheld a light blue smoke ascen