450 THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



all awed. The captain then said, ' Nindermann, now we will 

 all go southward.' This was about nine o'clock when Erick- 

 son died. 



The captain then asked me where we could find a place to 

 bury him ; I answered that the earth was too hard frozen to 

 dig a grave, and that we had no implements .with us ; we 

 could do nothing else than make a hole in the ice of the 

 river, and bur} 7 him there. The captain said yes, it must be 

 so, and then told Noros and Kaack to sew the body up in a 

 portion of the canvas belonging to the tent. 



At midday we were ready to bury him ; the flag was placed 

 over him, and we had a little warm water with alcohol in it 

 for our dinner. When we had drunk that the captain said : 

 * We will now bury our shipmate.' All were very still, and 

 the captain spoke a few words to us, and when he was 

 finished we took our comrade toward the river, and then made 

 a hole in the ice Avith a hatchet. The captain then read the 

 service for the dead, and Erickson's body was let into the 

 river, and was carried away from our eyes by the stream. 

 Three shots were fired over his grave, and then we went 

 back to the hut. The weather was very bad, the wind was 

 very strong, and the snow drifted fearfully. We had not 

 much to say one to the other. 



The captain told me to go out and see how the weather 

 was. I went out, but the weather was so bad and the snow 

 drifted so strongly that I could scarcely see anything; and I 

 said it would be better to wait till the storm abated, for we 

 could not see where we were going if we started out. I 

 thought the day was just such a day as the one in which we 

 buried Captain Hall. The captain then said, ' We will wait 

 till to-morrow.' That evening we ate our last portion of dog 

 meat. The captain said, 'This is our last meat, but I hope 

 we will soon have some more.' Then we all laid down to 

 rest. 



On the 7th of October when we awoke the wind was pretty 

 strong and the snow Avas still drifting. We made prepara- 

 tions to continue our journey. We left in the hut a repeat- 



