198 - ONLY ONE TEAM LEFT. 



out, I had him caught and put into a large box on the 

 deck ; but this seemed rather to aggravate than to 

 soothe the violence of the symptoms. He tore the 

 boards with indescribable fierceness, and, getting his 

 teeth into a crack, ripped off splinter after splinter 

 until he had made a hole almost laro-e enouo:h for his 

 head, when I ordered him to be shot. At this mo- 

 ment his eyes were like balls of fire ; he had broken 

 oif one of his tusks, and his mouth was spouting blood. 

 Soon afterward another fine animal, which seemed to 

 be perfectly well a few moments before, suddenly 

 sprang up, dashed off with a wild yell, wheeled round 

 the harbor, returned to the vessel, and there fell strug- 

 gling in a fit. I had him tied, but he tore himself 

 loose, and, fearful for the other dogs, he too was killed. 

 Three others died the same day, and the deaths during 

 the first two weeks of December were eighteen. This, 

 with the losses before sustained, left me with only 

 twelve animals. One week later these were reduced 

 to nine. 



The serious nature of this disaster will perhaps not 

 at first be apparent to the reader. It will be remem- 

 bered, however, that my plans of exploration for the 

 coming spring were mainly based upon dogs as a 

 means of transportation across the ice ; and now that 

 my teams were so much reduced (and it seemed, in- 

 deed, likely that they would all die) it became very 

 evident that, imless T should be able to supply the 

 loss, all of my plans would be rendered abortive. 



My anxiety was fully shared by Mr. Sonntag. 

 Having f(iiled in all our efforts to arrest the fatal 

 tendency of the malady, we could only occupy our- 

 selves with devising ways and means for remedying, 

 in some degree, the evil, or to arrange new plans in 

 conformity with our changed circumstances. 



