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MV ARCTIC JOURNAL 



room to read my letter. Gibson weighs 173^ pounds net, 

 against 1/6 14 when he left; the doctor weighs 153 pounds 

 net, as against 146^. 



Saturday, June 11. The past week has been almost en- 

 tirely without incident. Dr. Cook has assumed command of 

 our establishment, and I am therefore free of responsibility 

 beyond that of taking care of myself. My thoughts wander 

 constantly to the members of the inland ice-party, and I often 

 wonder if they will return in time for 

 us to go south still this summer. The 

 doctor and Gibson do not expect them 

 before the ist of September, while our 

 Eskimo friends cheerfully assure us that 

 they will never return. My instinct re- 

 volts against this judgment, but it makes 

 an impression upon me, nevertheless. 

 To-day I walked over to the Quarter- 

 Mile Valley, and sat by the stream which 



A Corner of my Room. 



there rushes down from the clififs and tumbles over the icy 

 hummocks, cutting its way through the snow that fills its bed 

 and over the ice-foot into the bay. The little snow-buntings 

 were chirping and flitting about me, and great patches of 

 purple flowers, the first of which I obser\-ed just one week 

 ago, were to be seen wherever the snow had melted suffi- 

 ciently for them to peep through ; these were the earliest 

 flowers of the season. I sat here and indulged in a fit of 

 homesickness. Never in my life have I felt so utterly alone 



