she having been driven into an adjacent bay during the night; miraculously escaping foundering. Landing was conducted expeditiously – without accident. The boats being hauled above high water on the shingly beach. Conceive our joy on setting foot on solid earth after 170 days of life on a drifting ice floe. Each day filled with anxiety patience & watching & and being driven whither? – to an obscure destination by the vicissitudes of Winds &; Seas. It is sublime to feel solid earth under ones feet after having trod but heaving decks & transient ice for nearly eighteen months &; feel that on what one is walking is reality – not subject to drifting & gaping Caprices that maroon &; drop one into the sea. On landing, a number of seals basking on the beach were immediately stripped of blubber &; a long draught of trumilk [true milk] prepared. Our phenomenal escape was drunk in hot steaming milk that set our frozen nerves tingling. The landing was effected but just in the eve of time, for so many of the party were emaciated by exhaustion fatigue & exposure, that they could not have survived another 12 hours.