THE WINTER NIGHT 335 



is extraordinary all the sounds that one can fancy one 

 hears out on that great, still space, mysteriously lighted 

 by the twinkling stars. 



"Friday, December 15th. This morning Peter saw 

 a fox on the ice astern, and he saw it again later, when 

 he was out with the dogs. There is something remark- 

 able about this appearance of bears and foxes now, after 

 our seeing no life for so long. The last time we saw a 

 fox we were far south of this, possibly near Sannikoff 

 Land. Can we have come into the neighborhood of 

 land aQ;ain '^. 



" I inspected ' Kvik's' pups in the afternoon. There 

 were thirteen, a curious coincidence — thirteen pups on 

 December 13th, for thirteen men. Five were killed; 

 * Kvik ' can manage eight, but more would be bad for 

 her. Poor mother ! she was very anxious about her 

 young ones — wanted to jump up into the box beside 

 them and take them from us. And you can see that 

 she is very proud of them. 



" Peter came this evening and said that there must be a 

 ghost on the ice, for he heard exactly the same sounds of 

 walking and pawing as yesterday evening. This seems 

 to be a populous region, after all. 



"According to an observation taken on Tuesday we 

 must be pretty nearly in 79^ S' north latitude. That 

 was S minutes' drift in the three days from Saturday; we 

 are getting on better and better. 



" Why will it not snow } Christmas is near, and what 



