LOOKING FOR SONNTAG. 213 



are so greatly multiplied. However, Sonntag had an 

 undisguised wish to remain some time among the na- 

 tives, to study their language and habits, and to join 

 them in their hunting excursions ; and when he left 

 I felt quite sure that, if a reasonable pretext could be 

 found for absenting himself so long, we would not see 

 him until the January moon. There is no doubt that 

 he will remain if he finds no interest of the expedi- 

 tion likely to suffer in consequence. 



January 5 th. 



I have no longer a dog. The General was the last 

 of them, and he died two days ago. Poor fellow ! I 

 had become more than ever attached to him lately, 

 especially since he had quite recovered from the acci- 

 dent to his leg, and seemed likely to be useful with 

 the sledge after a while. It seems strange to see the 

 place so deserted and so quiet. In the early winter I 

 never went out of the vessel on the ice without hav- 

 ing the whole pack crowding around me, playing and 

 crying in gladness at my coming ; now their lifeless 

 carcasses are strewn about the harbor, half buried in 

 snow and ice, and, if not so fearful, they are at least 

 hardly more sightly than were those other stiff and 

 stark and twisted figures which the wandering poets 

 found beneath the dark sky and " murky vapors " and 

 frozen waters of the icy realm of Dis. There was a 

 companionship in the dogs, which, apart from their 

 usefulness, attached them to everybody, and in this 

 particular we all feel alike the greatness of the loss. 



But it is hard to get along without a pet of some 

 Kind, and since the General has gone I have got Jen- 

 sen to catch me a fox, and the cunning little creature 

 now sits coiled up in a tub of snow in one corner of 



