A RUNIC MEMORIAL 



thing, and that is to be permitted to give up the fight and die 

 in peace. Every time one gets up to go on, all the agonies are 

 intensified, and one feels that relief could only come if one 

 were allowed to lie down and without a thought for the sur- 

 roundings seek peace in a long, long sleep. Life amongst 

 other people appears so distant, so unobtainable, that for the 

 moment it seems a matter of indifference ; death has lost its 

 sting, and one accepts it as a welcome necessity. Hunger is 

 felt no longer ; it belongs to the time when one was well and 

 had strength to resist it ; one merely feels a weakness so over- 

 whelming that peace cannot come until at length one lies down 

 for the last long sleep. 



Dr. Wulff was in this state when, after an incomplete rest, 

 he had to take up anew the fight for life with all the physical 

 suffering which paralyzed his will, and through his last diary 

 notes we obtain a gripping picture of the fight which he fought 

 until at last death proved the stronger. 



EXTRACTS FROM DR. WULFFS LAST DIARY 



"August 24th. — We start from Camp 18 at 9.15 a.m. 

 Land five kilometres distant near the goal. Big Cryokonite 

 holes. Descent rather steep. The last dog is being killed. 

 Several glacier torrents are crossed. Dead tired, half uncon- 

 scious. Reach the gneiss cliffs 7.30 p.m. after exactly three 

 weeks' march, four hundred kilometres across the inland-ice. 

 Tracks of hare and reindeer. 



" Camp 19. — The Edge of the Inland-Ice. 8 p.m. 



"Calm. Fog. Drizzle. We lie down to sleep on moun- 

 tain shelves. Cold, tent cannot be pitched. The three Eskimos 

 immediately go hunting, indefatigable. All through the night 

 veritable cannon-shot from the edge of the ice which runs 

 down into a small lake. L. leucopterus. Veget. on the 

 mountain terrace autumnal. 5° during the night, hoar-frost. 

 SaJLv arctica quite light yellow, and in fruct. Luz. confusa, 



279 



