274 RECOVERY OF SONI^TAG'S BODY. 



The report of Kalutanah being favorable, I dis- 

 patched Mr. Dodge to bring up the body of Mr. 

 Sonntag. He took the two teams, Kalutunah driving 

 one and Hans the other. 



Mr. Dodge performed the journey with skill and 

 energy. He reached SorMik in five hours, and had 

 no difficulty in finding the locality of which they were 

 in search, Hans remembering it by a large rock, or 

 rather cliff, in the lee of which they had built their 

 snow-hut. But the winds had since piled the snow 

 over the hut, and it was completely buried out of 

 sight. They were therefore comjDclled to disinter the 

 body by laboriously digging through the hard drift ; 

 and it being quite dark and they much flitigued when 

 the task was completed, they constructed a shelter of 

 snow, fed their dogs, and rested. Although the tem- 

 perature was 42° below zero, they managed to sleep 

 in their furs without serious inconvenience. This was 

 the first of Mr. Dodge's experience at this sort of 

 camping out, and he was justly elated with the suc- 

 cess of the experiment. 



Setting out as soon as the daylight returned, the 

 party came back by the same track which they had 

 before pursued ; but, greatly to their surprise, the 

 tides and wind had, in the interval, carried off much 

 of the ice in the neighborhood of the cape, so that 

 they had before them the prospect of the very diffi- 

 cult task of crossing the glacier. This, not particu- 

 larly embarrassing to an empty sledge, would have 

 been exceedingly so to them. Fortunately, however, 

 they succeeded with some risk in getting over a very 

 treacherous place where the ice-foot, to which they 

 were forced to adhere, was sloping, and one of the 

 sledges had nearly gone over into the sea. Kalutu- 



