CHAPTER XI. A COMMUNICATION FROM LIEUTENANT HOBSON. g) UCH was the situation. To use Sergeant Long's expression, ^^^^ the island had " cast anchor," and was as stationary as B;^?^ when the isthmus connected it with the mainland. But six hundred miles now separated it from inhabited countries, six hundred miles which would have to be traversed in sledges across the solidified surface of the sea, amongst the icebergs which the cold would build up, in the bitterest months of the Arctic winter. It would be a fearful undertaking, but hesitation was impossible. The winter, for which Lieutenant Hobson had so ardently longed, had come at last, and arrested the fatal march of the island to the north. It would: throw a bridge six hundred miles long from their desolate home to the continents on the south, and the new chances of safety must not be neglected, every effort must be made to restore the colonists, so long lost in the hyperborean regions, to their friends. As Hobson explained to his companions, it would be madness to linger till the spring should again thaw the ice, which would be to abandon themselves once more to the capricious Behring currents. They must wait until the sea was quite firmly frozen over, which at the most would be in another three or four weeks. Meanwhile the Lieutenant proposed making frequent excursions on the ice-field encircling the island, in order to ascertain its thickness, its suita- bility for the passage of sledges, and the best route to take across it so as to reach the shores of Asia or America. " Of course," observed Hobson to Mrs Barnett and Sergeant Long, " we would all rather make for Russian America than Asia, if a choice is open to us." "Kalumah will be very useful to us," said Mrs Barnett, "for as a native she will be thoroughly acquainted with the whole of Alaska." " Yes, indeed," replied Hobson, " her arrival was most fortunate
