THE RETURN OF DAYLIGHT. 267 



This unbroken monotony of life, with the steady 

 strain on the mind of perpetually standing by for a 

 mishap, is very wearing, and calls for all of one's nerve 

 to keep cheerful one's self and maintain cheerfulness 

 among one's associates. I hoped that by this time we 

 might begin to look for ice openings, and seals and 

 walruses, but we are having such very cold weather that 

 everything is shut up tight. I even hoped that we 

 might begin to see a glimpse of an occasional feather, 

 but no bird with a well-regulated mind would trust 

 himself in this temperature. We cannot yet feel the 

 want of fresh food, for our stock of seals laid in in the 

 fall has enabled us to have roast seal every Sunday for 

 dinner, and we have one left now for our coming Sun- 

 day's repast. We have also roast bear one day in the 

 week, and that is a treat. Our dogs are hardly as well 

 off as ourselves ; they are now feeding on the com- 

 pressed food, which is steamed until it makes a kind of 

 soup hash. This is not as nutritious as fish for them, 

 and does not satisfy their appetites. They are perpet- 

 ually rummaging around among the empty meat-cans, 

 and picking up what few, very few scraps are thrown 

 over the side. We need a spell of open water and a 

 chance to get some seals, or a walrus, to give them 

 good food and plenty of it. 



February 21th, Friday. — The pumping goes on with 

 its accustomed regularity, the steady thump, thump, 

 of the deck-pump being relieved occasionally by the 

 whirr, whirr of the steam-cutter's engine working the 

 main engine bilge-pump. So far as human ingenuity 

 can be of avail, we have reduced the greatest amount 

 of work to the least expenditure of fuel, and we can 

 do nothing more than wait for the mild Aveather which 

 will surel}- come by and by, and when we are afloat 



