THE WHITE WORLD 



faithful Rice, dooming him to perish from cold and exhaus- 

 tion. Good little Frederick covered his remains with snow 

 and ice, and alone made his way back through the dreary, 

 lightless ice-waste. 



The stronger would always cheer and support the weak. 

 Dear, good Israel, although bodily very weak, would in- 

 variably have a cheery word for his neighbor, who might 

 be physically a little stronger, but over whose mind dark 

 forebodings of approaching end would cast a gloom. Lieu- 

 tenant Lockwood, proud of his achievement of having 

 reached the farthest north, would mournfully talk of his 

 loved ones at home, and for an hour at a time would recount 

 the good things to eat in our own " God's Country," as we 

 used to speak of it. 



The first appearance of the grim visitor was on January 

 18, when Sergeant Cross, our engineer, died. Cross was 

 quite weak for some time, and showed some scorbutic signs, 

 the only really pronounced ones during our stay. Cross 

 was physically the weakest man among us, and having 

 used liquor and tobacco in rather large quantities during 

 the greater part of his life, his constitution was weakened. 

 This first death had naturally a somewhat depressing in- 

 fluence, but Lieutenant Greely made some judicious re- 

 marks and announced a slight increase in the ration, which 

 was, however, cut down again in a day or two, and one 

 man would try to show his neighbor how little he thought 

 of this sad affair, and point out the few chances of life we 

 still had. So by cheering one another, we were really in 

 a better state of mind that evening than before. 



After this, although all were very weak, no death took 

 place until April 5, when Frederik J. Christiansen, one of 

 our faithful, hard-working Eskimo dog-drivers died of 

 starvation. After that we had four other deaths in rapid 

 succession, when the bear, sent so opportunely, gave us a 

 number of meals of fresh meat, and for a time stayed the 

 ravages hunger had created. It must not be imagined that 

 we set to feasting at once, since we only allowed ourselves 

 eight ounces of the bear meat per day, and for this the 

 very little other meat yet in our possession was withdrawn. 

 The fresh meat, however, with the consequent improvement 

 in the mind, renewed hope for game, and through that, 



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