66 NEW- YEAR REJOICINGS. Chap. V. 



welcome for the new year — anxious, of course, that we may 

 escape uninjured, and sufficiently early to pursue the object 

 of our voyage. 



Exactly at midnight on the 31st December the arrival of 

 the new year was announced to me by our band — two flutes 

 and an accordion — striking up at my door. There was also 

 a procession, or perhaps I should say a continuation of the 

 band ; these performers were grotesquely attired, and armed 

 with frying-pans, gridirons, kettles, pots, and pans, with which 

 to join in and add to the effect of the other music ! 



We have a very level hard walk alongside the ship ; it is 

 narrowed to two or three yards in width by a snow-bank 

 four feet high. In the face of this bank some twenty-five 

 holes have been excavated for the dogs, and in them they 

 spend most of their time. It looks very formidable in 

 the moonlight, being a good imitation of a casemated 

 battery. 



After our rubber of whist on New Year's night Petersen 

 related to us some of his dreadful sufferings when with the 

 boat party from Dr. Kane's Expedition. They left Rensselaer 

 Harbour in August, 1854, intending to proceed to Upernivik ; 

 they spent the months of October and November in Booth 

 Sound, lat. 77 , all that time upon the verge of starvation, 

 unable to advance or retreat. For these two months they 

 had no other fuel than their small cedar boat, the smoke of 

 which was not endurable in their wretched hut, and without 

 light (for the sun left them in October), unless we except one 

 inch and. a half of taper daily, which they made out of a 

 lump of bees'-wax that accidentally found its way into their 

 boat before leaving the ship. In December they regained 

 their vessel. I am surprised that no account of the extreme 

 hardships of this party — so far exceeding that of their ship- 

 mates on board — has ever appeared ; and I regret it, as I 

 believe they owed their lives to the experience and fidelity 



