296 Chapter VI. 



a fox on the ice astern, and he saw it again later, when 

 he was out with the dogs. There is something remark- 

 able about this appearance of bears and foxes now, after 

 our seeing no life for so long. The last time we saw a fox 

 we were far south of this, possibly near Sannikoff Land. 

 Can we have come into the neighbourhood of land again ? 



" I inspected ' Kvik's ' pups in the afternoon. There 

 were thirteen, a curious coincidence thirteen pups on 

 December i3th, for thirteen men. Five were killed ; 

 ' Kvik ' can manage eight, but more would be bad for 

 her. Poor mother ! she was very anxious about her 

 young ones, wanted to jump up into the box beside them 

 and take them from us. And you can see that she is 

 very proud of them. 



"Peter came this evening and said that there must be a 

 ghost on the ice, for he heard exactly the same sounds of 

 walking and pawing as yesterday evening. This seems 

 to be a populous region, after all. 



" According to an observation taken on Tuesday, we 

 must be pretty nearly in 79 8' north latitude. That 

 was 8' drift in the three days from Saturday ; we are 

 getting on better and better. 



' Why will it not snow ? Christmas is near, and what 

 is Christmas without snow, thickly falling snow ? We 

 have not had one snowfall all the time we have been 

 drifting. The hard grains that come down now and 

 again are nothing. Oh, the beautiful white snow, falling 

 so gently and silently, softening every hard outline with 



